Trade not aid

At the West Africa Business Association (WABA) summer lecture, the guest speaker, Tidjane Thiam brought us back to earth with his forthright views.

He is well placed to speak on these issues having been the first ceo of the National Bureau for Technical Studies and Development (BNETD) in Cote D’Ivoire, an appointee to the World Bank’s External Advisory Council and also a Commissioner for Africa.

Thiam expressed his own views on the way forward for Africa’s future and not necessarily those of the organisations he is or has been involved in. He explained that Africa’s future will be determined by what Africans do or do not do. And there is no single magic bullet for a continent that consists of 53 very different countries.

At the heart of the matter are governance, capacity building and education he believes. One in ten children have IQs over 130 (university level) yet previous World Bank programmes froze investment in schools. Clearly there is much ground to make up now. He also reminded us of the oft-quoted African golden rule: he who has the gold unfortunately makes the rules.

Like many of us, Thiem believes it is trade not aid that really counts; also that it is impossible for Africa to compete against the EU’s agricultural subsidies.

Those subsidies of its 21m dairy cows for example are sufficient to fly each one of them (the cows) round the world first class every year. Simply put, Thiem agreed it would be better for Africa if all aid was to be cancelled in return for the cancellation of all European food subsidies.