AFRICA’S UNTAPPED RESOURCE POTENTIAL

Africa is blessed with a vast potential of natural resources, especially minerals, however, Africans are not willing to exploit these resources, according to senior continental economists.The economic experts were in Kigali for the seventh edition of the Africa Economic Conference that concluded, Friday. In various interviews carried out by The Sunday Times, the economists concurred that Africans should exploit their natural resources for their benefits and the growth of the continent.“Africans are not willing to exploit their natural resources themselves. That is why the continent is still in the poverty trap. If we embark on utilising our mineral wealth, our continent would be far ahead in terms of development,” said Yinka Adeyemi, a senior regional advisor of New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD).Adeyemi argued that there is abundance of mineral deposits like gold, oil, diamond, copper, coal, iron ore among others and massive virgin land that remain untapped in Africa.“Why should we wait for foreigners to come and exploit our resources…?. I think our leaders should ensure that Africans have the means and the capacity to make use of their natural resources,” Adeyemi explained.The four-day meeting drew hundreds of high-level delegates from Africa and beyond, including eminent academics, political leaders, representatives of international organisations, chief executive officers, civil society organisations and the media.The high-level continental event was organised by the African Development Bank (AfDB), the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) under theme ‘Inclusive Growth and Sustainable Development in Africa in an Age of Global Uncertainty’.“Instead of utilising our resources, we end up fighting for them; people lose their lives to wars. It’s high time we do away with all these heavy pressures and tensions and develop our continent,” Dr. Albert Makochekanwa, a researcher from Botswana said.He noted that Africans should use their land for production instead of leaving it to be exploited by people from other continents. Despite the abundance of natural resources, its increasingly evident that many Western and of recent, Asian nations often exploit Africa’s natural resources. At the end of the forum, the participants urged African leaders to put in place bold economic reforms, aimed at sustaining growth and boosting human development to utilise Africa’s untapped resources.Acquisition of farmland by foreign investors is also said to be reducing cultivable land for local farmers, and all the products cultivated are being exported, which may lead to food insecurity in the region. “Governments should make sense of land deals, scale up incentives and modernise the ways that agriculture activities are done,” said Gaston Gohou from CESS Institute in Côte d’Ivoire, who presented the paper titled “Land Acquisition in Africa: Threat or Opportunity for Local Population?” In most sub-Saharan African economies, land in rural areas is either state-owned or ownership is based on customary rights, rather than formal titles.