Africa's Development: Fallacy of Self-Sufficiency (1)

25 August 2014
opinion

DR. KINGSLEY Chiedu Moghalu, Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), recently delivered a public lecture on Africa's development at the London School of Economics (LSE). The lecture, entitled "Beyond Africa Rising", drew on his recent book, "Emerging Africa: How the Global Economy's 'Last Frontier' Can Prosper and Matter."

Dr. Moghalu was on a mission to challenge the current orthodoxy about Africa's development and to articulate a new vision for the continent. Africa, he began, may be emerging, but it is far from rising. He argued that recent macroeconomic stability, including low inflation, high GDP growth, and high returns on investment, has led to the growth of the "Africa rising industry," and to an "opportunistic" focus on Africa as the 'last frontier' of profit. Yet, Africa has not emerged, let alone risen as a co-creator of global prosperity: its share of world trade is just 3%; it attracts less than 4% of total world FDI; and its total GDP, at $1.6 trillion, is just about the GDP of Brazil.

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