Lynne Featherstone: Africa can be the future engine of global growth
10 Jun 2014 12:47 PM
Speech by the Development Minister at the Africa
Rising event - part of the International Festival of Business 2014 in
Liverpool.
There can be little doubt that Africa is on the
rise.
Six
of the world’s 10 fastest-growing economies of the past decade were in
sub-Saharan Africa. And the World Bank forecasts 5.3% GDP growth this
year for Sub-Saharan Africa.
But
Africa’s progress goes beyond the economic figures. More children are in
education, maternal mortality rates are down, fewer people are dying of malaria
and AIDS.
There is growing optimism that all Africans will have a
chance to benefit from the economic upsurge.
What’s particularly striking to me is the
explosion of innovation, ideas and entrepreneurship across the
continent.
In
Tanzania, a company named Off Grid Electric is applying the successful mobile
phone business model to light up off grid East Africa within a decade. Poor
households prepay weekly just for the energy they use for their lights, TV and
mobile phones from power systems installed in their homes for
free.
In
Malawi, the entrepreneurs behind Malawi Mangoes are setting up the
country’s first ever large-scale, environmentally friendly, fruit
processing plant, powered by solar and biogas, exploiting the growing demand
for mango and banana concentrate in African, Western and Asian
markets.
And
even in South Sudan, where there are so many challenges for businesses, the
South Farmers Company Limited recently launched a hatchery in the Kajo-Keji
county to sell chicks to small holder poultry farmers. Now, for the first time,
poultry farmers in the region have a regular supply of quality day-old
chicks.
Click here for full
speech