Keynote Address Delivered At Fordham University




ON SEPTEMBER 18TH, 2010
BY
ARTHUR KOBINA KENNEDY
ON THE THEME
“GLOBAL AFRICA IN PERSPECTIVE”






INTRODUCTION
Chairperson, Distinguished guests, Nana Amponsah and elders, distinguished faculty, ladies and gentlemen, let me begin by congratulating the African and African American Studies Department at Fordham University, the Asanteman Council of New York and other sponsors for the “SHOWCASE OF AKWASIDAE” celebration. I thank you for selecting me as the first Guest Speaker. I wish these celebrations the best of luck and hope that in the years to come, they will live up to your expectations.
Ladies and gentlemen, as a Medical Doctor, I worried about meeting the high standards that this audience expects. I decided, therefore, to give a talk about Africa, informed by ideas as well as the life experiences of Africans. I recalled my travels throughout Ghana as a Presidential aspirant in 2007 and a member of my party’s 2008 general election campaign. During those trips, I talked to a lot of Ghanaians about their lives, hopes and dreams.
Chairperson, due to Africa’s diversity, we must be mindful of the limits of the generalizations we make today.
One’s view of where Africa is depends on whether one is an optimist or a pessimist. Indeed, more studies have been done on Africa than on any other continent. At world gatherings, Africa is endlessly discussed. There are both demands on rich nations to give more aid and exhortations of Africa to do better. Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair described Africa as “the scar on the conscience of the world”. He is not alone. Speaking of Nigeria in 1998, former President Obasanjo captured Africa’s plight by stating, “Look at what has become of this country. We are one of the world’s biggest producers of oil, and we have no fuel. We have more power stations than we need and no electricity. Madness.”
An assessment of the Millennium Development Goals shows that in virtually every area, despite some progress, Africa lags the rest of the World significantly.
Today, slightly more than half of Africans live on less than a dollar per day. In South Asia and South East Asia, the figures are two in five and one in five respectively.
On hunger, nearly a third of Africans still suffer from hunger while only about a fifth of Asians do.
Our health is no better. We have the lowest life-expectancy amongst all the continents. Furthermore, just three out of every five of us have access to safe drinking water while two-in-five have access to basic sanitation.
We have similar problems with our infrastructure and education, with only a quarter of us having electricity.
To be fair, this is not to suggest that nothing good is happening in Africa.
Writing in support of the Africa Action Plan this year, the Vice-President of the World Bank for Africa, Obiageli Ezekwesili stated “Africa south of the Sahara today faces its brightest prospects in a generation.” After listing statistics to buttress her point she stated “These facts--- as well as the numerous success stories from Mali’s mango exports and Nigeria’s “Nollywood”, to Rwanda’s gorilla tourism and Kenya’s cut flowers--- paint a robust picture of a continent that is clearly on the move.” To buttress the World Bank’s perspective, Africa has seen the steady if tentative advance of democracy in the last two decades capped by Ghana’s peaceful transfer of power from the government to the opposition in 2009 after the “the closest elections in Africa’s history”.
In addition, this year, South Africa successfully hosted one of the biggest events in the world, the “World Cup Finals”.
Chairperson, despite the optimism of the experts, many Africans do not feel change in their lives.
Our politics is still guided by outdated norms and attitudes. In 2007, when I went home to contest my party’s nomination for President, an elder told me, “Son, here, your vision and competence do not matter much. The number of funerals you have attended will matter more than either. Until you have attended funerals for years, you will not be considered a serious candidate.”
Protections for persons and private property are so bad that armed robberies are common and disputes over land are settled by mobilizing guards or thugs to deal with others claiming the land.
We own only 4% of the world’s vehicles and yet account for 12% of deaths on the road.
Public figures routinely live above their means without being called to account for how they come by their wealth.
Our public schools are so bad that very few officials educate their children in them. Instead, the children of many big men go to private schools and then to Universities abroad while the children of the poor are left to the tender mercies of public schools.
Our public officials routinely seek medical care abroad, often at public expense, while our hospitals and health facilities continue to decay. Nkrumah, Sekou Toure, Houphoet-Boigny, Omar Bongo and others sought care and died in foreign hospitals while Africa’s hospitals deteriorated.
Chairperson, ladies and gentlemen, at the core of all these failures is a pervasive sense of lawlessness and a system that is clearly broken. All who can, do work around the law or the system. To be blunt, Africa has a colossal failure of leadership! Speaking last month in South Africa, former Ghanaian President Kufuor said “Leadership is key to unraveling the problems of Africa.” And he should know.
Chairperson, Africa’s plight, in hindsight, is surprising. Indeed, when colonialism was ending in Africa and Asia in the 1960’s there was little concern about Africa. The worries were all about Asia. Africa had vast natural resources and agricultural potential while Asia had little land, limited resources and hordes of uneducated people. Indeed, at that time, the average income in sub-Saharan Africa was twice that of Asia. Today, those ratios have reversed.
How did we fail and how did Asia succeed?
First, governance
Ladies and gentlemen, while governance begins with political systems and involves elections, it is far broader. It involves democracy, institutions, systems, accountability and transparency.
Too often, we had unelected governments more interested in factions than nations. Even when elected, governments became one-party dictatorships and elections just farcical coronations rather than real choices.
This weakened institutions, including Parliaments, Elections boards, Courts, Armed Forces, and Central Banks and others. Each time there was a coup, Parliament was dissolved. In most countries, Parliaments were so weak that when the President said jump, the answer was invariably, “How high, sir?” Judiciaries, without the support of the executives, withered and in most of Africa, what mattered was “the argument of force rather than the force of argument.” Presidents regarded national resources as personal resources. For instance, Marcias Nguema kept his country’s foreign currency reserves under his bed in a box. He was not alone. Even the visionary Nkrumah, when asked to release funds for a project once, reportedly said “I have no money.” When the person said he was requesting Ghana rather than Nkrumah as a person to fund the project, he replied “When I say I have no money, it means Ghana has no money.”In the absence of institutions, people turned to their clans or tribes for solidarity and to violence for dispute resolution. The result has been the transformation of our continent into one of the most violent and insecure places on earth. There have been coups, civil wars, and violent political and chieftaincy disputes. Ladies and gentlemen, the toll has been enormous. For instance, between 1998 and 2002, 4 million people died in the Congolese civil war alone. Before then, there were Katanga, Biafra, Western Sahara, Angola, South Africa, Rwanda and many others. Chairperson, in addition to deaths, violence is expensive. Reconstruction in the Congo and Somalia respectively will cost 20 billion and 7.3 billion USD respectively!
Second, economic factors.
Ladies and gentlemen, Africa’s economy is hampered by its structure, our investment climate, lack of infrastructure, insufficient trade and the cost of capital together with lack of credit.
About 30 years ago, 70% of exports from developing countries were in primary commodities. Today, 80% of exports from Asia are in manufacturing. In contrast, the last three decades has seen stagnation in Africa. Africa’s exports have remained the same and our share of global trade has collapsed from six percent in 1980 to 2% in 2002.
Our investment climate is bad due to our problems with governance, leading to the absence of strong protections for private property, lengthy judicial processes and corruption. Taxes have been unpredictable and inconsistent. These have undermined the confidence of investors, domestic and foreign, in Africa.
These are worsened by the high cost of capital and the virtual absence of credit in most African economies. Across Africa, interest rates are orders of magnitude higher than in Europe or North America and the delays from inefficient and corrupt bureaucracies add to the cost of doing business. For an investor whose products must compete in the global market, these are daunting odds. These factors have been worsened by the dearth of credit in most of our economies. Most of the advanced economies would be much, much smaller without credit. Outside Africa, large numbers of people buy houses, cars and many expensive items on credit. This spurs job and wealth creation but in most of Africa, most people pay cash for everything.
Ladies and gentlemen, Trade has been the key to global economic growth over the last half-century. Unfortunately, while world trade has increased by leaps and bounds, Africa’s share has declined. This decline has been due to over-reliance on primary products, high cost of production and low productivity. Stagnant economies and low trade have led to high levels of unemployment, underemployment and poverty.
Third, infrastructure and technology
Ladies and gentlemen, we lack the infrastructure for effective governance, communication, investments and trade. Any of you who have travelled extensively in Africa and in North America or Europe has been shocked by the contrast. To put it in numbers, in 2005, according to the Blair Commission, shipping a car from Japan to Abidjan cost 1,500 USD whereas moving that car from Abidjan to Addis Ababa cost 5,000 USD! Often, to travel from one African capital to another, it is easier to travel to Europe for a connecting flight than to get a direct flight. Electricity is in short supply and unreliable, adding to the cost of business.
Technology reduces costs, speeds up the pace of doing things and improves accountability. Chairperson, part of the reason for the accountability of the American policeman is that while he is dealing with you on the highway, a video-camera fixed to the top of his/her police vehicle is recording the interaction and may be reviewed later by his superiors. In Africa, however, our uptake of modern technology has been very slow. As an example, in 2001, as part of the orientation for the in-coming Ghanaian government, a survey revealed that a third of the new Ministers did not have e-mail accounts. Subsequent inquiries revealed that quite a few of those who had e-mail accounts could not access the mail themselves and needed others to log on to their accounts and print their mail before they could read. Tied to the inadequate infrastructure and technology, is our failure to maintain things. New roads, equipment and technologies, once in place, are rarely maintained with the result that they break down and are unusable within a few years. As I speak to you, the only CT scan in the second largest hospital in Ghana, KATH, has not been in use for over three months while patients are dying and staff are sitting around. A friend once opined that a little bit of paint on public buildings will do wonders for many an African city.
Agriculture employs about two-thirds of Africans. However, it is hampered by bad roads, problems with land tenure, low yield, inadequate storage facilities, and drought. In the last 20 years, while the proportion of African land under irrigation has stayed constant at 4% that of South Asia has risen to 40%.

Fourth, human factors.
Chairperson, our problems have been worsened by a mass exodus of talent from Africa. According to the Blair Commission, Africa loses an average of 70,000 skilled personnel every year to developed countries. Indeed, it is estimated that there are more African engineers and scientists working in the United States than in Africa. To make matters worse, under the direction of the IMF and World Bank, during the nineteen eighties, many African countries cut funding for education and health, thus slowing down the training of new professionals. The exodus has contributed to the dire statistics I have cited in health, education and governance.
While doing little to stem the exodus of African talent, it is estimated by experts that African governments spend about 4 billion USD annually to hire experts and consultants from Western nations.
Asia’s success
Comparing Africa to Asia, the Asians have succeeded for a number of reasons. The first is stability in their governance.
Tied to this stability is the quality of political leadership in Asia. Their history has been littered with great leaders. Lee Kwan Yew, Mahathir Mohammed, and Deng Xiao Ping are the most notable amongst a long list of visionary and pragmatic leaders who turned Asia from the the World’s problem continent to its inspiration. The Asian Tigers and recently, China and India have become examples of how the third world can develop.
Lee Kwan Yew turned a city-state without any natural resources into a successful, clean and prosperous nation with visionary and selfless leadership.
Deng turned China, with a quarter of the World’s population into an economic powerhouse in the last quarter-century. The ultimate compliment for Deng came from Mao Zedong, who said, “He is a man of rare talents. He has a strong sense of politics”.
Indeed, Asia’s achievement disproves the African excuse that we have not had enough time.
Chairperson, what did the Asians do?
They recognized the value of Agriculture. For instance, in 1962, the Chinese Communist Party declared agriculture, “the foundation and first priority of the national economy, followed by light and heavy industry.” China was not alone. Asia invested in irrigation, high-yielding seeds, roads and storage facilities.
Furthermore, to produce the skilled workforce needed for development, Asia invests heavily in education with the results that they have been in the front-ranks of education for decades. To supplement these, Asian countries have had strong programs to harness their Diaspora populations in their development. For example, since 2004, India has had a Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs, with a Minister of Cabinet rank, to deal with and co-ordinate their Diaspora. Every year, from January 7th to 9th, India celebrates its Diaspora, ending on the date that India’s most famous Diasporan and perhaps its greatest son Mahatma Gandhi, returned home to India from South Africa.
NA WHO CAUSAM?
In the wake of the pervasive malaise of Africa, some have asked whether the problem is Africa or the African.
Ladies and gentlemen, millions of Africans were taken from Africa as slaves centuries ago to work in North and South America. They were known for their hard work. When slavery ended, many of them joined professions and industries. Many went on to achieve fame and renown as entrepreneurs, inventors, professionals and soldiers. I know that many proud descendants of slaves are here today, to bear witness to the competence of the African. They have shown that even though their ancestors did not sail on the “Mayflower”, they are worthy Americans.
Every day, thousands of Africans get off planes and ships in hundreds of destinations outside Africa. Within weeks, they find jobs and show up to work on time. Within years, they attend the best Universities in the world and get degrees. They join the most challenging professions and get recognized. In short, subject to the same rules and systems, Africans are as successful as other races. From the ranks of those Africans have come many celebrated Doctors, lawyers, businessmen, inventors, A UN Secretary General and a President of the United States. The problem then, is how to make the African successful in Africa, not just as an individual but as a member of his community--- The African community!
Chairperson, while it is clear that Africa and its leaders are primarily responsible for Africa’s plight, we have had plenty of help from external forces in ruining our continent. US President Obama was partly right when he said in Accra last year that Africa needs strong institutions and not strong men. What he left out was an account of how external forces, West and East, during the “cold war”, helped to undermine our democracy, institutions and way of life. Dictators were imposed or supported, regimes deposed and civil wars encouraged. African talent was recruited aggressively without compensation. Even in the matter of our economic stagnation, subsidies to farmers, West and East, have significantly undermined our economic development. And they undermined our good, strong men while building up bad strong men. All people need both strong institutions and strong good men. America needed Washington and Marshall, China needed Mao and Deng, France needed de Gaulle and South Africa needed Mandela. Africa needs good strong men and institutions.
TURNING THINGS AROUND IN AFRICA
Chairperson, how can Africa come back? Is there hope?
First, let me answer the hope question. Yes, there is hope. There is hope when we look at how far the Asian tigers, India and China have come in the last four decades.
The rebuilding of Africa must not be done by copying the West or the East blindly. We must chart our own path, informed by the successes and failures of others and ourselves.
Here is how we can come back.
First, we must have data, systems and standards.
Chairperson, we must have data about everything in Africa. We need to know how many of us are there, what we do, where we live, how much we earn and what our needs are. It is unacceptable that Ghana’s Deputy Finance Minister could not tell the unemployment rate in his country while Nigeria reported its unemployment rate as 5% to the ILO in 2000. We need data, to tax, to plan our cities and towns, to budget and to distribute revenue. In short, data is to serious governance what oxygen is to life.
We must set aside a fixed amount of our budget for independent statistical services that will collect reliable data in Africa. And when we get the data, it must guide us.
Data will help us develop systems and standards in provision and monitoring of public services.
Second, we must improve governance.
Chairperson, our elections must be credible. Too often, the trigger for violence is a disputed election. Indeed, even in the absence of dispute, there often low-level intimidation in African elections.
Furthermore, we must decentralize. Power must move, away from Presidents, to other state institutions and from our capitals, to our regions and districts where people live, with resources controlled by local people. To complement these shifts, we should distribute revenue fairly, independent of those with executive power. Institutions that rely on the goodwill of the very executives they must hold to account for funds can never be truly independent. A mayor or Governor, appointed by a President in the capital is only accountable to that President, not the people. A police force whose chief can be sacked by the President on a whim can never be an independent and professional force. It will always be a political police force.
Whether it is a man accused of stealing a guinea-fowl or a President accused of rigging an election, our courts must dispense timely, impartial justice. It is unjust when a man sits in jail for ten years awaiting trial or a President rules for over a year waiting for the courts to determine the legitimacy of his election.
Ladies and gentlemen, people living hundreds of miles away should not make decisions for communities regarding their schools, their garbage and their traffic. Currently, in Nigeria where governors are elected directly by the people, the elected Governor of Lagos state, Babatunde Fashola, is turning heads. He has created “bus-only” lanes to speed up traffic, increased compliance with tax-collection and is building trust with the public as he tries to transform Lagos, a city of 18 million people. With decentralization, more Fasholas will emerge in Africa.
Third, we must fight Corruption.
This can be done by improving measures of accountability and transparency.
Chairperson, we must strengthen anti-corruption bodies by giving them more resources and making them more independent.
These bodies, freed from political control, must be able to ask a public official living above his or her means, where the money is coming from.
There must be enforcement of laws against those who loot the public treasury and strict procurement laws in place to protect public assets.
We must enforce the UN Convention against corruption and ask for the help of Western governments and institutions in tracking down stolen assets. Foreign governments must punish their nationals who corrupt African officials in the course of doing business.
Despite the appropriate publicity given to corruption by big men, what undermines Africa most is petty corruption--- the bribes paid to the police to speed up or kill a case, civil servants for documents and to school authorities for admissions. These bribes encourage “profitable inefficiency” in which those charged with providing services delay and thus force people to pay bribes.
To tackle all these forms of corruption, we must use technology to track revenue, and encourage “Whistle-blowers” by providing protections in our laws.
Furthermore, we must have “freedom of information” laws to open up the affairs of governance to the public.
Fourth, we must improve our Economy
Chairperson, Africans are like people everywhere. We need good jobs, affordable food and housing, good schools and hospitals, safe and clean environments and governments that are accountable.
Most of these can be helped by better performance in our economies.
We need to build infrastructure and use more technology.
These include roads, railways, waterways, airports, storage facilities, electricity and mass transit systems.
These will make it safer to travel and end the needless carnage on our roads.
We need railway lines with standard gauges that will move large quantities of goods in hours to days instead of weeks to months.
We need reforms so that business formation will be faster, easier and cheaper.
Compared to other parts of the world, so many Africans have properties that cannot be used for collateral because of lack of clear title. This is what De Soto described as “dead capital”. We must awaken the dead capital to help us create more wealth and jobs.
Chairperson, we need to add value to our primary products and export more value-added products, both amongst ourselves and to the rest of the world. As the figures I gave earlier showed, the rise of Asia has been tied to increasing export of value-added products. We need to export, not crude oil but refined oil and petrochemicals, not bauxite but Aluminum products, not timber but furniture and not raw diamonds but cut diamonds, ready to show love The addition of value to these products will not only provide good paying jobs, it will fill our treasuries with hard currency and make us wealthy.
Ladies and gentlemen, in 2005, only 12% of Africa’s trade was amongst African countries while the corresponding figure for Asia was 50%. This means that even while we complain about lack of access to western markets, there is a lot opportunity to increase trade within Africa. The question is not which barriers the colonialists left us but what we have done to remove them.
To facilitate trade, there must be significant customs reform. For example, after the end of the civil war that collapsed customs administration, Mozambique signed a management contract with crown agents that speeded up the clearance of goods 40 times and reduced tariffs and hassles. Surveys showed that 2 years later, 80 percent of road imports and 62% of sea imports with appropriate documentation were cleared within 24 hours. In the two years, customs revenue increased by nearly 40%.
Chairperson, we must fight, for fairer trade across the globe through the opening of markets and the removal of subsidies paid to farmers, East and West. Trade can never be free unless it is fair.
Fifth, we must revamp our Agriculture.
Ladies and gentlemen, currently, Africa imports about 22billion USD in food, in addition to another 1.7 billion in food aid annually. Given the experiences of other parts of the world, Agriculture will be the key to our revival.
Agriculture is the foundation that can and will support industrialization. Adding value to cash-crops will increase the income of farmers and improve our economies. But beyond cash-crops, we must grow food-crops. As our population continues to grow, the market for staple foods will far outstrip the markets for cash-crops. Indeed, even as we complain about foreign markets, it is estimated that the agricultural markets within Africa will be worth 50 billion USD annually in the next few years. Our development will never take off till we can grow enough to feed ourselves at reasonable cost.
To revamp our agriculture, we must irrigate our farmlands, improve soil-yield, build rural roads and storage facilities and provide loans for our farmers. Irrigation and higher-yielding seeds have been the keys to Asia’s food sufficiency while chemicals are turning non-productive Brazilian land into breadbaskets.
Urging farmers who are already losing significant portions of their produce due to lack of storage facilities and transport to increase their productivity does not make sense to them.

Sixth, we must invest in our people.
Ladies and gentlemen, our people are our greatest asset and an ill-educated, malnourished and unhealthy work-force cannot compete with the rest of the world. Too few of our children go to school and we do not teach them the knowledge and skills they need to compete in this new century. We need both to increase the number of people we educate and also change the quality of the education we are giving. Doubling the number of graduates from Universities whose graduates have up to 50% unemployment, will only increase the number of unemployed graduates. We must build more educational infrastructure, pay our teachers better and use more technology in our schools. We need our Universities to join our business leaders and governments to develop programs that will produce the workforce we need. We must align our educational systems to the needs of our economies.
We need to clean our environments, make our roads safer, reduce violent crime, train more healthcare workers and re-build our health infrastructure, by increasing the proportion of our budgets dedicated to health to the 10% recommended by the international community.
Seventh, we must engage Africa’s Diaspora.
Chairperson, as India and China have demonstrated, citizens who emigrate can acquire knowledge, skills and wealth which are vital to development. There is a proverb that states that one cannot tie a knot without the thumb. The Diasporans are Africa’s thumb and without them, the knot of development cannot be tied.
We must turn the “brain-loss” into a “brain-gain” because Africa cannot be turned around without those in the Diaspora. A former Governor of the Bank of Ghana , Dr. Abbey, got it right when he stated, on behalf of all Diasporans, “When I leave, you say I have joined the brain-drain but when I stay, you put my brain in a drain.”
Our governments must move beyond lip-service to engage our Diaspora. We must look to the example of India and establish Ministries or departments that will reach out and engage those abroad.
With the help of technology, a Professor at Harvard, McGill or Oxford University can teach students at Makerere Amadu Bello or Nairobi Universities while a physician in Amsterdam or Zurich can examine a patient in rural Zambia or Burkina Faso. We must use these opportunities.
Those at home must stop seeing their brethren abroad as competitors. They are partners. Diasporans love Africa just as much as those at home. As the African proverb states, “no matter how long a log stays in water, it will never become a crocodile” It does not matter whether one lives in Africa, what matters is whether Africa lives in the person.
It is hurtful, when our governments seek out foreign specialists and consultants, some not as knowledgeable as we are, while our expertise appear unwelcome in our homeland. I have experienced this. In January, 2009, as a Board-certified Family Physician, I applied to work as a physician in Ghana. After sitting around for nearly six months, I returned to the US and was working within two weeks! Last July, we all watched a number of young men who play in Europe play for African teams at the world cup. One of them was Ghana’s Prince Boateng. This young man who has never lived in Ghana fought for every ball as hard as anyone else and when we lost, felt out defeat as much as the other players—because Ghana lives in him as much as anyone of his countrymen. If we can welcome soccer players who have been born abroad and have never set foot in Africa to play for us, why can’t we welcome our own professionals?
But those of us in the Diaspora too, must change our attitudes. We must respect the sacrifices of those who have stayed behind and acknowledge that they have unique knowledge and experience. I remember that some years ago, a very good friend of mine who is a nurse in Britain lost her mother. She had been in Ghana for the last few weeks of her mother’s illness and was very upset about the decrepit state of the hospital and the unprofessional attitude of the nurses, compared to the time when she used to work there. As I pointed out gently to her, “You know, part of why things got that bad is because people like you and I left.” We must respect and honour the contributions that each and every African has made or desires to make.
Eighth, we must encourage philanthropy
Chairperson, while Africans are not as wealthy as others, we can give more. I have seen in the Ivory Coast, a wealthy man who had an old public garbage dump in front of his house for years. Every evening, he would drive home in his Mercedes Benz and sit on his broad veranda to dinner with the smell of the garbage dump in his nose. Why could he not have had the garbage cleared at his expense?
In Canada, I once met a Rwandan woman who told me that while living in Kigali, she had her family’s dirty laundry flown to Paris every week, to be delivered to a particular laundry. Why did her obviously wealthy family not build a laundry?
While there are exceptions, I am sure that many of you recognize the needless showy spending of some of us. In the US, an individual financed the “Flexner report” that changed the face of American medicine beginning in 1910. Private fortunes built universities like Harvard, Stanford and Princeton.
We must as Vicente Fox said “be men for others and not just for ourselves.”
Ninth, leadership.
Chairperson, without leadership, nothing else will matter. Leadership is about change, from where we are to where we need to be.
Too often, our discussion of leadership only ends with politicians. To turn Africa around, we must begin with and go beyond political leadership. There must be leadership, not just in our politics but also in our business community, in our judiciary, our Universities, in our law enforcement agencies, in our communities of faith and in our civil society. We need leaders who can do more than just talk. We need doers, not just talkers. We need to execute, to put things on the ground. These leaders will be the force that will bring all the other things together.
CONCLUSION
Ladies and gentlemen, while we must do most of the work, the rest of the world, that helped us to mess Africa up must do their part, by stepping up support, for good governance, for trade through the reduction of subsidies to their farmers and helping us track looted money sitting in their banks.
We must accept that no Western countries will come and build Africa for us. We must, with help from our friends, build it for ourselves.
Chairperson, I regret that the Africa that produced Nkrumah, Mandela, Soyinka, Pele and Obama, is not as confident as it used to be.
Earlier this year, at the World Cup, Africa was represented by six teams and only one of them had an African coach. It was a dramatic illustration of how much confidence we have lost in ourselves. Ironically, no country has ever won the world cup with a foreign coach.
My fellow Africans, turning our continent around can be done, and we must do it.
As US President Barrack Obama once said “We are the men we have been waiting for.” Pliney the Elder said something new was always coming out of Africa. Let us give Africa and ourselves something new--- A renewed Africa.
To those of you sitting here, Africans and friends of Africa, I remind you of the universal calling to service.
I urge you to get involved. We are all, Gods instruments and therefore, here on earth, Gods work is our own.
To the obvious question “What can I do?” the answer is that you can and must get involved. Citizenship, my friends, is not a spectator sport. We must not just express but live our love for Africa. Sometimes, your desire to get involved will be discouraged by family and friends. They will tell you that Africa is beyond redemption. They will tell you that you are wasting your time. Some will deride you behind your back. Sometimes, it can undermine your marriage, as it did to Mandela and many others. But it is the right thing to do.
You can write for and about change even while you are here. I write a column about once a week that reaches nearly a million people through electronic, print and radio.
You can support projects at home through your membership of groups here, like the Asanteman Association that helped to organize this event, or on your own.
You can go home and teach for a month, for months, for a year or for good, if you are a teacher.
You can go and work in a hospital or clinic if you are a Doctor or Nurse for a month, for some months or a year or for good.
You can start a business that will employ some people back home.
You can get involved in politics by joining a political party or a non-profit group.
You can reach out to Africa through your church--- and you can pray for Africa and Africans.
All these are being done by some people but we need more people to do them, to take Africa to its tipping point for development.
Even when the powers on the ground discourage you, remember the people—of Africa need and want what you can offer.
We must approach the rebuilding of Africa, not as ethnic groups, not as parochial nationalists, not as religious zealots but nationalists and AFRICANS!
Chairperson, when we all do these things consistently, we can dream again, of a New Africa.
An Africa where traffic lights work and our streets are clean.
An Africa that grows enough to feed itself and for export.
An Africa where life-expectancy is rising and more children can reach adulthood.
An Africa whose youth can look forward to good well-paying jobs and success at home.
An Africa of laws, systems and standards, applied fairly and consistently.
An Africa where leaders are ambitious, to do things for the greater good, rather than be big men for themselves.
An Africa, on its feet and claiming, by its performance, this young century.

Thank you!


REFERENCES
1: OUR COMMON INTEREST: REPORT OF THE COMMISSION FOR AFRICA
2: THE MDG’S AFTER THE CRISIS: GLOBAL MOMITORING REPORT 2010
3: BBC DEBATE ON AFRICA’S FUTURE
4: CONVERSATIONS WITH EXPERTS