Africa Investment Forum: Where opportunities & capital collide

The African Development Bank is launching the Africa Investment Forum —a meeting place for investors interested in what Africa has to offer. AfDB President Akinwumi Adesina, South African Minister of Finance and Gauteng Premier David Makhura discuss “Africa Investment Forum – An Opportunity for Collaborative Leadership”.

[eliotdzindikwa]

Well articulated. But very useful if speech is turned into total action.

[mfundomnguni]

This is awesome staff for SA, we have a rate of unemployment in our country so we need entrepreneurs to create more employment for our young people and to stabilize the currency for the future of our country

[keithwilliams]

At first sight, The AFRICA INVESTMENT FORUM does sound like a very worthwhile initiative. However, to the extent that the Forum might serve as a distraction from the more substantive goal of the UNIFICATION OF AFRICA and the genuine development of the AFRICAN PEOPLE, one might find it extremely difficult to ascribe any degree of wisdom to any AFRICAN son or daughter who might allow himself/herself to fall into such a cunning trap. The moderator of the Forum did not mince words in making it clear that “The Mantra of the Forum is “TRANSACTION, TRANSACTION, TRANSACTION” or “BUSINESS, BUSINESS, BUSINESS.” But the question immediately arises as to who would be the real beneficiaries of the kind of "high-speed" transactions anticipated by the participants of the forum. Let us not forget that Africa has been a popular destination for traders and other kinds of “business” people for centuries. Before the abundance of metals, minerals, and other resources lying within the entrails of Mother Earth was discovered, Europeans, Arabs, and other intruders subjugated native Africans and depopulated the continent by trafficking in human beings, and other commodities to their greatest delight. Today, Africa and the AFRICAN PEOPLE are no better off despite the fact that Africa is the most resourceful continent in the world; with its people being its most valuable resource. Even so, African countries and the AFRICAN PEOPLE remain among the poorest in the world. And the main cause for such a state of affairs is that business, albeit mostly of the EXTRACTIVE kind, has very little or no regard for people. Like no other racial group, Black people have “BEEN THERE, DONE THAT” time and time again. British shipping companies constructed ports throughout Africa to facilitate the enslavement industry (“the slave trade”) but the real beneficiaries of such colossal investments were the Port of Liverpool, and Jewish families like the Rothschilds whose assets steadily grew into the trillions. No small wonder that the African Investment Forum is the brainchild of CNBC Africa. For, the raison d’etre of CNBC is the glorification of capitalism and the rise of the stock market which are primarily concerned with the maximization of profit. Dr. Akinwumi Adesina must be admired for his academic accomplishments and for his service to the country of South Africa. But while the President of the African Development Bank is correct that labels like “Masters Degrees”, “PHDs”, and so on do not really mean anything, he is a bit short-sighted in his belief that the missing philosophical “gap” could be ably filled by the label “competency.” For, a person’s competency could be determined only within the parameters within which it is measured. And so, when one considers that the primary mission of the founders of Harvard University Business School, like so many of the other ivy league schools, was to study how the business community of Boston could become wealthier, the unease created by the mantra of the Forum becomes contagiously palpable. It is on the basis of such a rationale, therefore, that this commenter agrees with His Imperial Majesty (HIM) Emperor Haile Selassie I that the legitimate interests of Africa could be best served by Her ENLIGHTENED sons and daughters rather than by those whose lack of enlightenment leaves them fatally exposed to the machinations of other less well-meaning souls. Accordingly, every well-meaning African would agree that any agenda which gives priority to attracting foreign investments in whichever of the 55 so-called sovereign countries scattered throughout the MOTHERLAND, as intimated Premier David Makhura in his final statement in the video, at the expense of AFRICAN UNITY, must be construed as a lack of Enlightenment or, more appropriately, a classic case of "putting the cart before the horse"” and again subjecting the African people to being duped by historically dominant races. The road map for AFRICAN UNITY and genuine development that other AFRICAN leaders like HIM, the Right Honorable Marcus Mosiah Garvey, Kwame Nkrumah, and so many others have left us is just as relevant today as it has ever been. It is on such a model that the dialectical synthesis of the RASTAFARI Philosophy is predicated. And any attempt to try to “reinvent the wheel” would be unnecessarily and backwardly redundant.

[endameluwassie]

almost all african organization always talk about development, integrety and prospersity.but in reall most of african organizations still stagnant on paper .

[Passbu]

He said absolutely nothing. He never went into detail about specific channels to get investment money.

[dawiemeyer]

"where opportunities, capital, crime and corruption collide" stay away