Philadelphia — At the third US-Africa Business Summit in Philadelphia last week -- the largest gathering of African leaders on American soil (outside the United Nations), hundreds of business executives and political big guns from both sides of the Atlantic met to listen to each other and cut deals. Featured African guests included President Joseph Kabila of the Democratic Republic of Congo and Algeria's President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, who received an award for his contribution to the Partnership for African Development (the New African Initiative -- a plan for continental economic and social recovery that he masterminded along with Presidents Thabo Mbeki of South Africa, Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria and Senegal's Abdoulaye Wade).
"Assistance doesn't mean charity, it means investment" was the mantra of many of the participants in the meeting, which was hosted by the Corporate Council on Africa (CCA), a private-sector group, established in 1992 to strengthen trade and investment ties between the United States and Africa.
As the Summit concluded, allAfrica's Ofeibea Quist-Arcton and Reed Kramer spoke to CCA's chairman, Maurice Tempelsman, a businessman who has a long association with Africa. Mr. Tempelsman is chairman of the board of Lazare Kaplan International, a leading diamond house, and senior partner in the firm of Leon Tempelsman & Son, a company active in mining, investments and minerals trading throughout the world. Excerpts from the interview:
Mr Tempelsman, how would you sum up the US-Africa Business Summit here in Philadelphia?
It's a further step in an on-going process that brings together the private sectors of the United States and the private sectors in Africa.
The Corporate Council has a membership of 197 US firms, from the very largest to small and medium-sized ones. And we are making an effort to increase the number of small and medium firms, all with interests in Africa. About 85 percent of US investment in Africa is represented collectively by the Council.
This summit came about in close proximity to the AGOA (African Growth and Opportunity Act) ministerial meeting in Washington, at which President Bush and Secretary Powell and the Secretary of the Treasury and the US Trade Representative were able to have a dialogue with the ministers from the AGOA participating countries. This is, in a sense, a further step to provide momentum in that direction - private trade.
This has been a meeting place, a marketplace in many ways in Philadelphia, but concretely what comes out of these business summits?
What comes out of it, bottom line, is business deals and transactions. It gives people an opportunity to meet other people with similar interests, to listen to policy makers, to be informed about new opportunities and new areas.
It's the way private business is done. Each entrepreneur, whether you are the leader of a large or small corporation, pursuing in an enlightened way his own self interest, and using his own initiative, his mind, his own energy -- or hers - in order to advance their businesses.
President Bouteflika of Algeria was talking, in his keynote speech at the US-Africa Business Summit, about the Partnership for African Development and AGOA, and he mentioned that he would like to see the Maghreb countries brought into the AGOA process. Do you see any prospect of that happening?
Well, it was a new thought. I think it would be early for me to form a judgement on it. It took quite an effort to get the AGOA legislation through the Congress, with all the compromises that needed to be made. My own view is we certainly ought to consider it, but I think it's principally a question of what Congress would wish to do.
Following up on that point, President Bouteflika kept stressing to the United States and the rest of the world, that they should stop viewing Africa as separate entities, and see it as a continent.as one. And, in a way, the fact that the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act does not include Maghreb countries is marginalizing part of the continent while, on the other hand, the United States is saying to Africa, you must be unified.
I would say both realities are true. But, in a sense, it's a matter of timing. I think whether we like it or not, the African continent is not yet one large country. It may be in decades. And he did also ask for patience and perseverance.
At the present time, in terms of the private sector, it is probably more important to look at Africa as individual countries: because some of those countries are doing better than others and some are taking the right kinds of measures to encourage investors while others are not.
And without being disrespectful to President Bouteflika's inspiring dream - I agree with it, in time - I think the important thing, at this point, is to make sure that we encourage the private sector to look at individual situations. Because, one of the complaints that many Africans have, and many Americans have, is that if there is something wrong anywhere in Africa, the whole continent gets blamed.
Take, for example, the neighbours of Zimbabwe. They are all suffering because of certain policies that are being pursued that are spilling over. Their reputation and their standing is being affected.
So I think it's important to look, as an investor - not as a political scientist; as an investor, you must look at a specific country, its program, its opportunities.
You've been involved in Africa a long time and you've participated, over the years, in a lot of dialogues that were called US-Africa this or that. Is this summit different? Does it mark a new phase?
I think it does, incrementally. Again I do not believe that one conference or one meeting dramatically changes things. But a couple of things have happened since the last meeting we had in Houston. The first one was the passage of AGOA, opening US markets to those who are qualified.
Then, there is the African Union which, is taking the Organisation of African Unity to its next step. They will no longer accept or admit governments which have gotten into power through a coup d'etat.
And finally there is this New African Initiative with a new name [the New Partnership for African Development], which is a very important thing. It is very important because it outlines reciprocal responsibilities. It's realistic. It's changing the way the two parties come to the table. It's changing it into a mature dialogue where each side knows what the real world is like.
They don't argue whether it's a debt owed from the past or whether it's conditionality, or whatever, but it's a practical dialogue in order to attract investment. What needs to be done and who can do what and which side takes the responsibility for doing what, rather than finger-pointing.
It's in that context that these meetings (US-Africa business summits) play a significant role. No government institution, no international institution, can tell a private company 'you must go there'. The conditions have to be right, the conditions have to be present for someone to make the risk-reward decision that goes into making an investment decision.
The Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, Walter Kansteiner, addressed the summit and spoke about the private sector being the engine for economic growth. But we also heard James Harmon a former head of the Export-Import Bank, saying governments of the G7, lead by America, have got to start a modern-day Marshall Plan to help Africa and other developing continents in the aftermath of the events of 11 September.
It was a thought that was well-worth putting there. I think the question is the timetable and the possibility of implementing that. I think the private sector will have to play a role in either direction.
I think that some of the thoughts that Mr Harmon expressed have great merit. If you recall, what he was emphasizing, principally, was the expansion of export credit facilities which, in a sense, is a cooperative effort between the private sector and institutions like Ex-Im Bank. Because in the end, these institutions do not make products. What they do is attenuate risk.
So, if I extract the essence of what Mr Harmon was saying, he really was saying that there is a place for closer cooperation between government institutions and the private sector, in specific cases, for a greater risk attenuation. And that this can take the form of additional export credits, or combining, as he suggested, some form of concessionary aid with export credit. It can take the form of insurance, for either political or economic risk. But I certainly think that, in the post-September 11 period, that is an area that deserves review and consideration.
There were some good ideas in what Harmon said and I didn't see any contradiction between the two positions. It's just a question of how you mesh them.
As someone who might be thinking of investing in Africa, would you go trotting off to the continent now? Do you think Africa is going to be adversely affected by what has happened here in the United States on September 11th?
The world has changed since September 11th. There's no doubt that there's an additional risk factor, an additional dimension that you can't overlook. And I think the people who perpetrated this barbarous act, in a sense, punished not only the wealthy, but punished the poor even more. Unfortunately, this will have drastic consequences.
Sign up for free AllAfrica Newsletters
Get the latest in African news delivered straight to your inbox
At this point, we continue with our operations. All that I can say is that the future is much more opaque than it was before September 11th. I am going to Africa on a trip in three weeks, to southern Africa. I haven't cancelled my plans, I haven't changed my plans. You know, investments are not made on the basis of just a trip. You have a project, you've done a feasibility study. You may want to take another look at what's happened to the capacity to finance things nowadays.
But there's no question that the events of September 11 are, in my judgement, a call to a realization that there is a big economic challenge and task ahead of us. But at the same time, it has not made it easier to fulfil that task.
You spoke of the need to address the poverty gap, which you said was there before, but is even more necessary, post-Sept 11, What role has business got to play in that and specifically the Corporate Council on Africa?
Businesses have to take their own decisions in where they deploy their resources and where they take their risks, so it's not up to me to tell any other company where they should and should not go.
The Corporate Council on Africa's function is to work with these companies who are interested in Africa, who are open-minded and would like to pursue it, and make their task easier. Our job is, at the same time, to have a dialogue with policy makers on both sides of the continent to make sure that each side understands what the needs, what the requirements, of the other side are. And that task we will continue.
We will try to be of greater service to our members. We will try to attract more members. We will encourage African businesses to come over here. We will talk to members of Congress, We will talk to members of the Administration. We will provide a platform, as we have in Philadelphia, for African leaders who come to this country and would like to address a broader audience than just the Washington policy-maker audience. That's the direction in which we're going.
And we will do whatever we can, in our own way, to add public support to the New African Initiative [the New Partnership for African Development]. I think that's an important one. We don't view it as a short-term, quick-fix. But it's a direction and the start of dialogue.
So you're saying, 'Africa, we're by your side, we're standing by you?'
Very much so, very much so.
