A spirited debate recently took place in a regional capital around issues pertaining to economic development, or rather the lack of it on the African continent, despite the huge human and natural resources at the continent’s disposal and the crying need for these to be translated into drivers for heaving the continent out of the mire it wallows in.
The interrogations attached to the mega-question of why Africa lags behind other continents despite the endowments it has been asked perennially, and the inability to arrive at some sense of denouement trumps many people I have a chance to engage with thereon. On this attest occasion, again, thinkers from the region did not sound as if they had moved closer to an answer they could all live with. After a day and a half, dissentions seemed unbridgeable, although the desire to seek greater understanding was all too clear.
