In 2008 I wrote a blog posting entitled US Missing the Boat on Development in Africa.
The national, soon-to-be-international economic meltdown had already started and my brief post asked why, in the largest english speaking region outside of the North America, US businesses were letting China and other countries get a huge economic head start on business development in West Africa. It predicted that we would continue to do little or nothing and the foothold of China and Europe would continue to expand while we twiddled our economic thumbs - though I must admit I was tempted to use a far more colorful description regarding thumbs.
I was not the only one writing about this in 2008, but there were few enough of us that I could have counted them on two hands, and none of them included the US Ambassadors, or other State Department personnel, who seem to consider West African posts as either punishment or preamble and in either case spend far more time grumbling about the posting than trying to serve a useful purpose.
Yet despite this, I view the conference held at the White House on African development last week as a promising development and more important I believe that it is - surprisingly - not too late.
Why?
How is it that more than half a decade could go by with burgeoning foreign investment in Africa and yet there is still opportunity for the US to not only compete in Africa but to lead. The answer is that Africa is crying out for African solution and so far they have been presented with neocolonialism from the Chinese and most of the other serious players. The Chinese and gulf countries have made huge investments in Africa but they have built an infrastructure of expatriates, ignoring the brainpower and industriousness of the people of Africa. When the investments made could have yielded solid profits and also bolstered the middle class of nations like Ghana and Nigeria and Tanzania, they have chosen to play a game of post-modern colonial capitalism and blatant cultural nepotism.
It is the opening in the field for the US Government as fullback to open the hole wider and the private sector, acting as the American economic quarterback, to power through and take the lead. Gobbling up those college students who languish at the gates and desks of hotels and a thousand other sites of underemployment, and crafting an afrocentric investment strategy. This is a strategy that not only asserts us as the economic co-generator of the African economy but that wins hearts and minds in the process.
Amazingly, the opportunity to lead in Africa still exists. The question remaining is will we have the foresight to see it and the wisdom to share the wealth and benefits.
Wayne King is a recovering politician and former CEO of MOP Environmental Solutions. As a social entrepreneur he is now engaged in economic development and poverty alleviation in West Africa.
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