By Dr. Abubakar Bukola Saraki

The late Professor Claude Ake once remarked that it was inappropriate to speak of the failure of development when speaking about Africa. The problem with Africa, he said, was that development was hardly on the agenda. Anyone who is familiar with the post-independence history of Africa would agree with this sad but true assertion.

The 1960's brought a wave of independence to the African continent; and independence readily fuelled hopes and dreams. In those heady days, many African countries believed that in a few years, they would catch up and even overtake the Europeans.

Ironically however, the wave of independence also brought the storm of political upheaval across the continent. The new power elite, some of them nationalists who fought for the independence of their countries, battled one another for control and dominance. Those who won did everything to dig in [sometimes for life], while others plotted and planned to upstage them. Soon, Africa, from Cape to Cairo, became one huge boiling pot of political upheaval.

The global environment was also conducive. The cold war was at its murderous peak, and the continent provided a new battle ground for the two super-powers, who actively supported insurgence and sustained dictatorship. At this point, the concept of “good government” was defined by the willingness of African governments to serve the interests of their patron countries, and not those of their people.

Nature was also playing a crude joke on Africa. The discovery of oil, gold and diamond in many countries ushered in an era of unprecedented prosperity, which further intensified and inspired the political crises, while heralding an era of prestige projects, mindless profligacy and wanton corruption.

The absence of development in Africa, especially in the years following independence, can therefore be largely understood in this brief historical context. So also is political under-development: the problem and failure of governance and government institutions, including further conflicts; and economic under-development: failure to achieve growth and widespread poverty. In fact, all these are so densely connected that it is so difficult to isolate the cause from the consequence.

Getting Politics Right

The question of whether the nature of politics has any implication for economic growth and development generally seems to have been settled, especially since the 1990s. There is no doubt that political development, represented by genuine democracy and the rule of law is a basic sine qua non for economic development, especially as it relates to attracting the right investments for growth.

Despite the varying quality, depth and health of democracy across the continent; and despite the conflicts still raging in a few countries, democracy has been accepted by Africans as the only form of government capable of mobilizing the huge natural and human resources on the continent in the service of development and economic growth.

Having settled the political question in the 1990's, attention has since then been turned to issues of development in Africa. We are all familiar with the grim reports and statistics on Africa's poverty and the debilitating burden of debts, deaths and diseases. In an era of unprecedented global prosperity and development, Africa remains an open sore of the world. United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDG) targets halving the world poverty by 2015. In September, the UN will hold a special General Assembly Summit to review progress towards the MDG. Meanwhile, experts are already saying that unless real and urgent actions are taken by rich countries to support developing countries, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa, there is little or no chance of them delivering on any of the MDG targets at the current rate.

The British Prime Minister, Mr. Tony Blair famously remarked that Africa is a scar on the conscience of the world. And he wants to do things to help Africa. Other rich countries and world leaders are also signing on to the ‘Africa project.' The EU has announced plans to increase its aid spending by 0.39% by 2006. The US administration would be increasing its contribution to the Millennium Challenge Account by $5 billion and about $2billion for AIDS by 2006. More than 50% of these would be targeted to Africa. The United Kingdom, for example, plans to allocate 1 billion pounds of its planned 4.6 billion foreign assistance budget for 2005-2006 to Africa.

The logic is that both increased resources and strong institutional reform programmes are necessary to achieve the MDG. Therefore, if used effectively, aid can promote growth and stability, which attract investment. Both donors and recipients have also realized the need to nurture a strong policy environment and take necessary steps to improve aid effectiveness.

All these suggest that the rich man of the west is not just content to hide in his castle. He is willing to step into his poor cousin's compound and help him to raise the walls. No doubt, Africa can use some aid. And there is a way globalization tends to legitimize the question of how much of the problems of Africa should be the business of Africans only. The recent Tsunami tragedy in East Asia has shown how intimately we are connected to one another and how disasters are also globalised.

Nevertheless, we are all familiar with the discontents of aid. The best evidence that billions of dollars in aid over the years have not lifted Africa could be found in the problems that the continent is still grappling with today. More importantly however, is that a new generation of leaders is emerging in Africa who does not want to approach the world with a begging bowl. Leaders who want to engage the world as partners; leaders who are prepared to take responsibilities for the problems of their countries and continent; leaders who recognize the enormous opportunities that abound in the world and are eager to connect Africa to the centres of those opportunities; leaders who want to harness the huge resources of Africa to play on the global stage; leaders who are not content to ask, ‘what can the rest of the world do for us', but rather ‘what can we do with the rest of the world.'

Nigeria: Beyond the Oil

Someone described Nigeria as a rich country with poor people. This is very easy to understand. Nigeria's export economy is up to 90% dependent on oil. And when the linkages between the exports sector in a country is not linked with the rest of the economy, only limited development should be expected. Nigeria's oil economy therefore lacks the capacity to incorporate development objectives of improving the living standards of the majority and promoting balanced growth.

However, since 1999 when the present government of President Olusegun Obasanjo came to into office, efforts have been directed at diversifying the economic base and developing the so-called Non-Oil sector. At the core of this is a broad governance reform package and improvement of macro-economic conditions, which would attract Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), encourage production for the domestic markets thereby reducing dependence on import, as well as encourage exports.

While working as Special Assistant to the President on Budget Matters in 20001, I was chairman of a committee requested to devise strategies that would shore up Nigeria's non-oil earnings by $1 billion annually. One key experience that I took away from that committee was that no other sector holds so much promise for economic growth, especially that which integrates a large number of our people into the core productive sector, like agriculture sector, which employs more than 70% of Nigeria, and indeed, Africa's population, who eke out bare existence through obsolete farming practices, weak institutional and infrastructural support base, wasteful and non-profitable market environments, among others.

However, when I assumed office as the governor of north-central State of Kwara in 2003, I brought into office some of these experiences and the desire to do something different. The challenges that we faced as a State Government are not significantly different from those that confront most other states in Nigeria, and by extension even many African countries, if you consider that with a population of about 2.5 million people, we are as big as some of Nigeria's neighbouring countries.

The State however has remained heavily dependent on federal government financial allocations for running the government and propagating social development. Internally generated sources of funding such as company and income taxes are a small fraction of the state's revenues, at less than 20% of the government's annual average incomes. With the civil service employing about 75% of our people in formal employment, we have over the years maintained an expenditure profile that is neither productive nor sustainable by deploying up to 65% of our budgets on recurrent alone: salaries, and other general administrative spending.

It was clear therefore, that if we must achieve development, whether in terms of reducing poverty, improving human development standards or creating the right environment and structures for investments, we must begin to break new grounds, explore new opportunities and create innovative and dynamic strategies. We therefore, resolved to do the following:

• Redefine the role of government as a facilitator and promoter of economic development, recognising that economic growth will require targeted incentives and interventions in specific areas to promote specific sectors.

• Consolidate and strengthen the enabling environment for a competitive private sector. This would include such initiatives as reforming the civil service to make it more responsive to the needs and demands of customers, revamping and privatising government-owned enterprises, improving security and the rule of law and investing heavily in physical infrastructure.

• Provide targeted incentives to grow the private sector. Such incentives would include effective coordination of government inputs and regulation, easy and affordable access to finance, promoting the development of industrial and technological clusters in sectors where the state possesses an identified competitive advantage. Create public-private partnerships for improved economic performance, increased private sector interest in the state and to establish a continuous platform for interaction between interested parties.

• Facilitate the setting up of private companies in specific sectors such as agri-processing, manufacturing, solid minerals, telecommunications, power, transportation.

In seeking niche areas, we are conscious of our geographical location, which provides direct access to markets both in the north and south of the country; our border relationship with five other States, and an international border with the Republic of Benin. We are also aware of our huge mineral deposits, which have remained untapped over the years. And, most significantly we are aware of our rich agricultural lands and climate, which have been found suitable for almost all kinds of crops and therefore gives us a distinct comparative advantage in the cultivation of several food and cash crops.

In the past, agricultural development policies had been characterized by non-targeted and wasteful spending on importation of farm tractors and fertilizers without any clear goals in mind. Perhaps, this wasteful public spending in agriculture can only be rivaled by what many have described as the tragedy of modern Nigeria: The billions of naira spent in importing food from other countries of the world. Nigeria spends about $2 billion annually in importing food items. Recent reports show that each year, Nigeria spends $132 million on importation of milk; $400 million on wheat; $200 million on poultry, especially frozen chicken; and $756 million on rice. Nigeria also imports about 95 million metric tones of sugar annually. In short, Nigeria's approach to development has been ineffective and unsustainable.

Our approach is to lead the way in changing Nigeria's reliance on imported food, especially poultry, milk and other diary products by making Kwara State a net producer of food, agricultural and Agro-allied products both for the huge domestic market and for export.

Kwara State has a substantial cultivable area representing 75.3% of total land area or about 2,447,250 hectares. However, only about 11% of this is currently being cultivated by small farm holders, with an average farm size ranging between 1-2 hectares. The average age of the farmer between 50 to 60 years, because they lack any form of formal education, they lack basic management skills or ability to learn from new technologies or existing best practices. Therefore, average crop yields are low at 1.5 Metric tones per hectare for maize, 1.5 for rice, 1.0 for groundnut, and 12.0 for cassava (tubers).

Owning to a combination of these, the farmers are unable to access funds and therefore rely on government for subsidies on major farm inputs like seedling, fertilizers, pesticides and other chemicals. This of course has always presented its own problems as only 10-20% of these subsidized inputs get to the actual farmers. Our experience with fertilizer distribution in 2003 confirmed this problem. Usually, despite the huge sum of money that the government spends on fertilizers, farmers always complain that they didn't get any fertilizers. Whereas, in the face of this scarcity, the black market business in fertilizers was booming. What happened was that unscrupulous officials connived with local retailers to divert the fertilizers and then sold them to farmers at the black markets at a price that only the rich farmers could afford.

Therefore, what we did was to strictly monitor the delivery of the fertilizers as they arrived and took records of what was kept in each warehouse. Instead of distributing the supplies to each council areas and districts, we centralized the distribution and requested the extension officers in each area to collect verifiable list of actual farmers who needed fertilizers. He then collected their payments and forwarded same to a central office at the State Ministry of Agriculture where each bag of fertilizer had been branded. To our utter surprise, few weeks to the end of farming season, the warehouses were still full of fertilizers despite repeated announcements on the State radio that we had fertilizers in our stores. This anecdote goes to show that some of our problems can be easily solved if we are ready to pay attention to the system and strengthen it.

That was a little digression, but the point is that if we must practice agriculture at a scale that would match our goals, it was necessary for us to rise above this subsistence level, and move into large scale commercial farming while gradually integrating the small farm holders into the core farming centres to deal with the poverty component of our development strategy.

We had keenly followed events in Zimbabwe, which we knew had a rich history of successful commercial agriculture. As it became clear that the crises between the government and the white farmers was not about to be settled, some of the farmers began to relocate. Some went to Zambia, while some moved to Mozambique. In no time, we began to hear news of how these small crops of farmers were beginning to turn around the agricultural sector in those countries. Naturally, it occurred to us, why not Nigeria, why not Kwara State. These people have the kind of expertise we require, so why don't we bring them in.

So, we reached out and started talking to them. Initially, they were reluctant. Even though they have lived in Africa for many years, and many of them were even born in Africa, they didn't have much information about Nigeria on which to base any investment decision (And Kwara State, where was that?). Moreover, these were people who had just lost their life investment to the political problem in their country, to convince them to start all over again, in another African country, was going to be difficult. It was therefore, clear that we had to start by shoring up the confidence level. We started this by inviting them to Nigeria and to Kwara State. On one of such visits, we conducted a tour of the farmlands and afterwards took them to Abuja to meet with President Obasanjo, who assured them that they are welcome in Nigeria because Nigeria would like to keep in Africa what is good for Africa, and commercial farming is good for Africa.

The second level was the issue of funding. Like I said, most of these farmers had lost their investments in Zimbabwe, even if they had any equity to bring on board, they were naturally reluctant. Again, we began to talk to some banks and arranged a series of meetings between them and the farmers. Over the years, financial institutions, especially the banks, had complained of lack of “bankable” project in the Agric sector.

This project gave us opportunity to take them to task and we challenged them that now here is a project that could be supported. In the end, they were able to secure substantial commercial loans, which were protected by government guarantee. The proposal as set out by the Zimbabwean farmers' project indicates $7.5 million, which would go into providing road networks around the farm sites, irrigation, water and power supply, and health facilities; and another $10 million as working capital. These represent the counterpart funding provided by government as loans. Farmers' equity comes to $1.125 million representing the cost of farm lands and payable over a 5-year period.

Today, as I speak to you, these farmers are in Kwara State, working on a scheme will initially bring an additional 20,000 hectares under cultivation and will generate substantial marketable surplus in food and cash crops that will encourage the development and expansion of local agri-processing and agricultural exports. At the same time the scheme would provide for farm extension activity designed to transfer knowledge and techniques into the small scale subsistence farming sector.

For example, we project that investment in dairy production will yield up to 5 million litres of milk per annum (pa) and will take care of domestic needs which is currently characterised by shortfalls, high prevailing prices, and the importation of up to 98% of domestic consumption. At present Nigeria, imports 48,000 metric tonnes of dry whole milk, 30,000 metric tonne of evaporated milk, and 16,000 metric tonne of dry skimmed milk every year. It is also projected that production of broiler chickens would yield 125,000 broiler hens, pa; dry land rice at 15,000 metric tonnes of, pa and irrigated rice at 8,500 metric tonnes of, pa. With all these, projected growth in dairy output in Kwara State alone, excluding growth in other sectors (rice, maize and poultry) will generate a potential $21 million saving in foreign exchange outflow (20% of total whole milk imported amount by Year 3), which will free up considerable potential development funds.

Quite significantly, it is projected the Zimbabwean farmers would be cash-positive in poultry and diary in the first 3 years, and in would declare profit for mixed farming in the first 4 years. It is anticipated that total agricultural output will increase substantially over a 5 year period as production expands and the impact of improved farming methods and techniques are disseminated to the smallholder population through a planned agricultural extension programme.

In employment terms, it is projected that direct employment per annum based on a target of 15,000 ha of production would be 4,000 labour days in dairy (rising to 40,000), 1,560 labour days in poultry, 2,000 labour days in rice. While these estimates reflect direct on-farm employment a substantially larger quantum of employment will be generated in downstream activities (processing, transport, wholesale and retail). The overall effect of the commercial farming initiative could be huge.

The Challenge of Value Addition

The overriding concern in all these is how to develop the penetrative capacity of Africa's products in the larger economies of the world. We cannot achieve this and the economic growth we envisage by merely exporting raw materials. If we fail to add value, we would merely be labouring in vain. Statistics from the International Coffee Organisation, shows, for example, that for every dollar earned by the local coffee farmer, traders and firms further up the value-adding chain received $13. Apart from the enormous loss in income that comes with raw material export, there are other advantages too.

It has been pointed out that exporting flower from, say Zimbabwe, depends largely on economic conditions in Europe. Moreover, when prices of raw materials increase, manufacturers in the West naturally device a more efficient use of resources and ultimately substitute these with synthetic material, as in the case with cotton. Also, increased protection of agriculture in the West and slow down in population in, say Germany, decrease demands for primary products.

In Kwara State, we have large farms of fruits and vegetables, especially tomato. Almost all of these are sold cheap to domestic consumers and are mostly wasted. Whereas the market was flooded with all brands of imported canned and packaged fruit juice and tomato purees. However, the enabling environment provided by Federal Government policies has enabled us to tie our agricultural policies to industrialization, especially in the agro-allied sector.

We intend to replicate the success recorded in Asia with the philosophy of “small is beautiful,” by establishing small production and processing units for poultry, especially frozen chicken, diary products, fruits and tomatoes, cassava, cashew and sugar cane. With less than $8, 000 we could establish sugar processing plant with 95% local content and a capacity to produce up to 90 tonnes per annum. Nigeria produces about 120,000 tons of cassava annually, out of which 5,000 tons have been billed for export to China. The country hopes to realize 5 billion naira (about $38 million US dollars) from cassava export every year. To promote this scheme, the Federal Government is providing $35 million dollars through the Nigerian Export Import Bank to boost the production of cassava chips.

Our government would be hoping to take advantage of this by establishing cassava chipping centers in various parts of our state to support local farmers, especially women, to benefit from this initiative. We have already established small processing units for tomatoes, again to be operated by women, which we launched late last year. The case of cashew is even more interesting. In the past, Indians would come to Nigeria and buy up the raw cashew nuts and take it to India for processing, from where they export to Atlanta. Our plan is to process our cashew nuts ourselves and export from Ilorin to Atlanta. We envisage that all this initiative will in time position our Kwara State as a leading producer of processed fruits and tomatoes, as well as sugar, poultry and cashew, for the domestic markets, while pitching us for exports on these products.

The point I seek to make with the Kwara State efforts is that harnessing Africa's competitive advantage in world trade will require us to add value to our raw materials by investing in manufacturing, especially in the agro-allied industries, and Small and Medium Scale Enterprises (SMEs) sectors.

Like agriculture, the industrial sector in Kwara is not large and not very developed due to a combination of factors: relatively small size of the local market; inadequate levels of critical infrastructure such as unstable power supply, poor rural road connectivity, inadequate water supply; low availability of affordable capital for potential entrepreneurs and inadequate linkage between local research and technology institutions and local entrepreneurs.

There is a total of about twenty Small and Medium Enterprises (SME's) operating in the State. Three-quarters of these are privately owned and are engaged in activities such as the production of soap and detergent, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, biscuit, tobacco, foam and beverage brewing and bottling. There are five publicly-owned SMEs in the state in the business of furniture-making, paper milling, textile manufacturing, sugar production and rice milling. None of them is functioning at full capacity and some of them are moribund.

In seeking to revive this sector, we are embarking on an Independent Power Plant (IPP) project to improve power supply and hence, reduce the cost of doing business in the State. We have also focused on improving rural-urban road network to ease farmers' difficulties in transporting produce to the urban centres. At policy level, our step-change in agriculture has enabled us to focus on schemes that would offer real and productive support to farmers by assisting them to strengthen their associations and to organize themselves better to take full advantage of the markets. Another policy action is in leveraging funding support for small scale investors in financial institutions with loans targeted for the development of small and medium scale enterprises in the country.

Generally, our experience has shown that in seeking to develop the SME, regulation and partnership are key factors. While outright privatization seems to be easy way out for most of the moribund companies, many private investors are usually very skeptical of their viability. One way we have sought to shore up their confidence is through partnership. The Kwara Furniture Manufacturing Company ltd. is our major success in this respect. Even though the company had been moribund for years, we have managed to revive it through private partnership and investment with a South African company. Backed with appropriate export incentives, we envisage that this company would soon be exporting to markets in Europe and the Middle East.

In developing all these export capacity, I must mention that our international airport in Ilorin is envisaged to play a very crucial role. Recently, we were able to get the Federal Government to designate the airport as the country's main cargo hub to serve as alternative to Lagos, which usually suffers from congestion. Apart from serving as a dry port, exporting by air from Nigeria also gives enormous advantage, especially in exporting agricultural produce because it is only 6 or 7 hours away from major markets of Europe.

Bureaucracy is a major death of enterprise in many African countries. Government that should exist to facilitate business actually hinders business. So, the first stage is to ‘debureaucratise.' Apart from willingness to partner with private investors, all the bottlenecks associated with setting up business have to be removed. In Kwara State, one of the most difficult aspects of setting up a business in the past is getting legal title on land.

Therefore, many investors who recognized the strategic advantage of our location as it relates to the national markets could not come because it was near impossible to get land. One of the first things we did was to review the regulations surrounding land allocation in the State. Then we came up with a fast-track system that guarantees money back on failure to deliver the Certificate of Occupancy to an applicant within two weeks of concluding his application.

However, our experience has also shown that while partnership and regulation are crucial to nurturing industrial growth, equally important is access to market and of course, capital as well as a range of governance issues that would inspire investor confidence. Government must demonstrate willingness to strengthen and sanitise institutions of government and be more transparent in the way it conducts business. In our short period in office, we have managed to institutionalize the due process as an administrative culture. By establishing the Price Intelligence Unit (PIU) that ensures that cost of projects are kept at the prevailing market rate; and the Project Monitoring Unit that ensures effective completion of projects, we have not only enhanced the efficiency of governance, but also ensured transparency and accountability.

If contractors know that their proceeds would not go back into bribing officials or doing “PR”, they won't be too keen in inflating contracts and they are likely execute projects effectively. We are one of the very few States in Nigeria that have followed the Federal Government in this governance reforms effort. In fact, we were the first State to volunteer for the DFID governance benchmarking exercise, which subjected our system to strict compliance tests on a number of indicators on accountability and transparency.

By playing by the rules of good governance, we seek to gain the confidence of everyone that come into contact with our State. This way, we are not only seeking to re-brand Kwara State, but also Nigeria. With this outsiders can take a second look at us and by doing so, notice our market and resource potentials and accept us as a viable enterprise.

Africa of the Future: What We Must Do.

While I have touched on some of the reforms and support that are required at the international level to enable African countries to fully take advantage of their natural resources and compete effectively with the rest of the world, I would like to focus presently on those things that we must do for ourselves, especially if we must attract the necessary investments to our continent in the areas that would enable us to fully realize our competitive advantage

• Economic growth and investments can only take place in an atmosphere of social stability. As the former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell once said, "[c]apital is a coward. It flees war. It flees disease. It won't go near corruption." African countries must create the right social and political climate to attract capital. No one would put their money where bombs and mortars are flying in the air. Investment decisions rely heavily on predictability. For example, political upheaval was said to have prevented Cote d'Ivoire from taking advantage of a recent 15-year high in cocoa prices, and political strife is fast ruining the economy of Zimbabwe, who for the first time in many years, had to start importing food. Corruption is also a very important issue, and perhaps, apart from war and disease, this has endured as another negative face of Africa.

However, I am glad to note that many African countries have recorded significant progress in dealing with these problems. Regardless of what the Transparency International reports, while we are still far from stamping our corruption from the continent (and no other part of the world has succeeded in doing that) appreciable progress has been made. If we recall that evidence of commitment to fighting corruption is one of the key AGOA criteria, then something is going on in Africa for 38 out of 48 countries to qualify for eligibility.

• Another important thing we must focus on is branding and packaging. How come that even for people who cannot tell where Africa is, the continent instantly provokes images of conflict, disease, corruption and all such things. The answer is simple. We have left the story of Africa to be told by other people. It is therefore important that we must learn to tell our own story. We must celebrate our own achievements, no matter how modest. Foreign investors have very little information about markets in Africa and they tend to act together and respond to market sentiments rather than macro-economic analysis. Therefore, we have to package market opportunities in Africa and sell it to the world.

In 2002 when Nigeria deregulated the telecommunication sector and put up licenses for sale for the operations of GSM phones, many investors were very reluctant. Nigeria was just emerging from 17 years of uninterrupted military rule. No one was certain if the new democracy would survive. When the bid was advertised only three companies, one Nigerian, one Zimbabwean and one South African dared to venture in. MTN, a relatively small South African company was one of the two that got the initial license after paying $280 million and thereafter invested additional $500million loan in equipment and other expenditure. Less than three years down the line, with about 2.5 million subscribers MTN's investment today worth about $6 billion, with about $560 million in profit level. This is in Nigeria where 70% of the people are said to live below the poverty level.

I am sure the big players in telecommunication, MCL, AT & T, would not touch Nigeria with a long pole in 2002 obviously because of the country suffered bad branding. Therefore, like I said earlier, we must pay considerable attention to this issue of branding. We must tell our own story; we must show that a new crop of young leadership is growing on the continent that is prepared to play by the rule of a new world. Once investors can focus less on country risk and begin to look towards Africa as an investment destination, then it would be easier for them to assess each project and opportunities on purely economic terms.

• We must also invest in the development of necessary infrastructure and institutions, such as irrigation, roads, electricity, and research centres that would boost farmers' access to modern production technologies, training in technical areas such as sustainable agriculture, quality control and packaging Support for the development of local farm organizations, especially for marketing and distributed on. All these require huge investments. And like I said earlier, these are critical areas that aid could be given to African countries already suffering from low domestic savings, and crushing debt overhang.

• As I have tried to demonstrate above, agriculture holds enormous potentials for Africa's development if public policy makers in our countries are willing to do the right thing. And like I said earlier, a new generation of leadership is emerging on the continent of Africa that is genuinely committed to the task of achieving development for Africa. However, beyond this will and zeal, so much still depends on external forces, outside our control.

Agriculture represents different things for different parts of the world and their governments. For the rich countries, agriculture is a pre-occupation of a few interest groups. For the developing countries, especially the poor countries of Africa, agriculture is tied to the very livelihood of the majority of the people. For the rich countries, it is about making profits; for the poor countries, it is about fighting poverty. And for any public policy maker, poverty is a very serious concern.

While agricultural development is tied to the key problem of food security in Africa, it also represents Africa's best competitive advantage and the long term concern of economic growth. No country can hope to achieve growth if it does not export, but successful export depends so much on equitable trading at the global level.

Because Agriculture represents Africa's comparative advantage in global trade, the continent's capacity to trade fairly with the rest of the world rests on the principles and practices that govern global trading regimes. At the moment, the card is hopelessly stacked against Africa and other developing countries of the world.

Since the conclusion of the Uruguay round of trade negations in 1995 and the adoption of the Agreement on Agriculture (AoA), African countries had hoped for fairer deals than what they used to experience. While the principles of the WTO as it relates to agricultural subsidies, market access and tariff, seem to give significant considerations to the concerns of the developing countries, not much has changed at the practical level. While tropical agricultural products from Africa are still locked out of the Developed countries' markets, huge subsidies on agriculture in the Developed countries have sustained the flooding of African markets with cheap food and other agricultural products. How for example, do we expect the poor dairy farmer in Kwara State to survive when the market is flooded with highly subsidized milk?

Therefore, the European Union's agricultural policy and U.S. agricultural subsidies have grave implications for the ability of African countries to raise exports by depressing our potential to increase our incomes through trade. A recent World Bank report stated that industrial countries spend more than $300 billion annually on agricultural subsidies. It is estimated that this is six times the amount they spend on foreign aid to developing countries. Conversely, it is projected that gaining unrestricted access to industrial countries' markets could boost developing countries' incomes by5%, calculated relative to the income forecast in 2015. For example, that if the Developed countries agree to withdraw subsidies from the cotton sector alone, this could lead in the short term to 50% rise in price, and would boost Africa's cotton exporters' revenue by $500 million.

One of the hopes that African countries took to Doha and later Cancun was that these sessions would, in line with the ‘Development Agenda' lead to measures that would promote fair trade and reduce Africa's reliance on aid. Unfortunately, this has not happened. Even all the renewed efforts to focus global attention on Africa's poverty and the continent's capacity to achieve the MDGs, including the recent World Economic Forum, still focus largely on aid. However, like I said earlier, if Africa really needs any aid now, it is that aid which will enhance Africa's capacity to trade with the rest of the world.

Just as President Benjamin Mkapa of the Republic of Tanzania recently said, let the rich industrialized countries agree to a timetable for dismantling agricultural subsidies and other trade barriers; then let them support Africa to develop its institutional capacities, including capacities to implement some of the agreements under the AoA. The agreement on Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures (SPS) has presented great difficulty for African countries. Unfortunately, this has given legitimacy to some actions of the Developed Countries in limiting access to agricultural products from the developing world. A recent report shows that in 1998, European Community regulation on SPS is estimated to have cost close to $700 million in lost revenue to African exporters of groundnuts.

Therefore, aid should be directed at assisting African countries to establish effective regulatory standards, and food safety assurance bodies, while extending the transition period for those measures to be applied to give enough time for countries to build their institutions. This is the only way Africa can hope to compete fairly with the rest of the world. I believe it is easier for a Developed Country leader to explain to his people that subsidies are starving millions of people in Africa than for an African leader to explain to his people why they would have to keep working so hard and yet remain hopelessly poor. How would he then be able to go back to them and ask for their votes which would keep him in office to continue with all the wonderful reforms that the World Bank and the IMF demand of African leaders? These are serious issues.

Distinguished ladies and gentlemen, I have tried in the last half an hour or so to share my views with you on what Africa can do to raise its competitive advantage in the world. I have also shared with you some of my own experiences and approaches as Governor of Kwara State, Nigeria. If there is one message I want us to take from here this is it: Africa must ask of the world what is good for Africa; but more importantly, Africans must have the courage to do what is right and necessary for Africa. We must dream the African dreams, if we must be able to tell the African stories in a way that would make other people want to come to us with respect and pride, and not with pity and shame. We have wasted so many years and did many things wrong. But we must not continue to dwell in the past and we must resolve to do the right and march along with the rest of the world. In the immortal words of W.B. Yeats, he wrote in ‘Sailing to Byzantium':

That is no country for old men. The young

In one another's arms, birds in trees

-Those dying generations – at their song,

The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,

Fish, flesh or fowl, commend all summer long

Whatever is begotten, born and dies.

Caught in that sensual music all neglect

Monuments of ageing intellect.

The Africa of my dream is that of a continent of the joyful young in one another's arm, birds in the trees at their song, unmindful of the old and their sad past, ready to march on and celebrate the future full of hopes and confidence in the greatness of mother Africa.

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The Executive Governor of Kwara State delivered this keynote address at the African Business Conference of the Harvard Business School, Harvard University, Boston, 12 th February, 2005