Africa: Arab Fund Stresses 'Investments in People'

15 November 2001
allAfrica.com
By Abderrahim Foukara

Geneva — The Arab Gulf Programme for United Nations Development Organizations (AGFUND), established in 1980, held its 2002 Awards ceremony for Pioneering Development Projects at the UN offices in Geneva Wednesday.

The first category prize of $150,000, allocated to projects in the field of 'application of information technology' was awarded to the World Space Foundation's Africa Learning Channel and Multimedia Service. The second category prize of $100,000, allocated for non-governmental organizations, went to an Egyptian micro-credit project for small enterprises run by Alexandria Business Association. Other prizes went to projects in India and Saudi Arabia.

The Fund is headed by Talal Bin Abdul Aziz,a Saudi Arabian prince who formerly served as minister of finance and ambassador to France. Following the ceremony, Prince Talal talked with with allAfrica.com about some of his organisation’s achievements and his vision of development in Africa. Here are excerpts from that interview:

[Translated from Arabic by AllAfrica]

Your Royal Highness, you seem to believe that the best investment is investment in people. Would you elaborate on that?

Unfortunately, we in the Arab world did not pay attention to that important issue. In fact, I myself was not aware of it early in my life. I think that Africa also neglected this issue, perhaps because of colonization.

In the Arab world, we built a few schools and universities but like in the rest of the developing world, we were short-sighted and did not know what it meant to invest in people. But as we began to operate on an international level, we also began to realize that that kind of investment is crucial because if you build a factory but do not have people to make it work, you will have to import expertise and that negates your achievement.

Would you tell us a little bit more on how you see investment in people in the context of sub-Saharan Africa?

Some of my African friends say that when the European colonizers left their countries, a domestic colonizer took over. They say they had despotic and dictatorial governments instead of embarking on a democratic course. Africa’s problems are many, although its resources are bountiful. But there was a kind of slackening and everything has been blamed on colonization, although colonization has been long gone.

Look at Malaysia today. It was once a colony but today it exports technology. So we have to blame ourselves.

The other issue is corruption. We heard the Secretary General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, an African, say that financial corruption has led to financial waste. The reason for that is lack of democracy which means three main things. Firstly, legislation. Secondly, accountability. Thirdly, monitoring.

One day, Bokassa [the former self-declared Emperor of the Central African Republic] invited me to visit him in his country. I found out that the few institutions in the capital, Bangui, had been built by the colonizers -- a university, a small number of schools and hotels.

He gave us diamonds as his guests. That made me wonder about the future of the country. So Africa has to have a bright future, provided its people pay attention to the issues of corruption and waste, and do not rely on foreign assistance which should only complement the projects they set up themselves.

You have a project for an open university in the Arab world. Would you contemplate a similar undertaking in Africa?

We have contacts with North Africans in this matter -- the Moroccans, the Tunisians and the Libyans. The Tunisians said they don’t need it and we were surprised to find out later that they had their own plans for an open university. Discussions are still going on with the Libyans and the Moroccans. As to sub-Saharan Africa, this is the first time that question is put to me.

Does that mean, you may have plans for the region?

We feel that we have to gain a firm foothold in the Arab world first. Once the open university is established there and it begins its programmes, we will see. Why not, we can think about it.

What about the banking sector. You have a 'Bank of the Poor' project in the Arab world. Do you think you could extend the idea to sub-Saharan Africa as well?

The same goes for the Bank of the Poor. Once it has been firmly established in the Arab world, we can discuss sub-Saharan Africa. But who will be our interlocutor in sub-Sahara Africa? That is the question. When the time comes and we say we are ready, will there be somebody from the other side to talk to. So let someone from the region come forward. I wish that you in allAfrica would tell people there to get in touch with us.

Following the 11 September attacks on New York and Washington DC, you called for a delegation from Arab civil society to visit the United States to further explain Islam to the Americans. Given that the attacks were launched 'in the name of Islam' and given that several of those on the list of most-wanted terrorists, as the US authorities call them, are from Tanzania and other African nations, why not include non-Arabs in that delegation?

We gave that idea serious consideration initially, but the main suspect in this affair is an Arab, a Muslim Arab specifically. If you look at the US press, the focus of their terrible attack targets the Arabs. They do not attack the Iranian Hizbollah but the Arab one in Lebanon. Besides, why widen the circle at this stage? The larger the circle, the more difficult it will be for us to operate. Constructing an Arab delegation is difficult as it is. So let that be a beginning.

Arabs had once been very close to Africa. They took Islam to Senegal, Ghana and many other parts and sometimes became part of the fabric of those places. Nowadays, it is said, they are no longer as attentive to the region. Do you agree with that assessment?

The answer is very simple. The early Arabs were motivated by their strong faith in the message of the Prophet Mohammad. They had a message to convey. Today, we don’t have a message to convey. We live in a vacuum. The Arab world today has internal squabbles. So before we reach Africa and other regions, we have to have a message. What is our message today? We don’t have one.

Don’t you think that development and investment could be today’s message?

Unfortunately, even the rich countries today complain about the deficit in their economies. They may have billions and billions of dollars of revenue, but the deficit means they don’t have enough for their own internal projects, unless they create funds and financial institutions like the Islamic Development Bank. That bank is doing magnificent things.

There is something important here. There are 'fatwas' or religious edicts by Islamic scholars who say that it is much better to build a school than a mosque. That is very important. We often hear that some wealthy Saudi or Arab person built a mosque here and a mosque there. That is wrong. God Almighty can be worshipped anywhere and the number of mosques in our countries has become inflationary.

But to build a school would allow us to talk [about development]. That is a little difficult at the present time.

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