Ep 208. - The Price of Progress: Economic Realities in Africa with Prof. Abdoulaye Ndiaye
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Africa is a resource-rich continent with immense potential. When countries within the continent demonstrate good governance and sound economic judgment, they thrive. It is, of course, overly simplistic to discuss Africa as a monolith. Yet some regions, particularly sub-Saharan Africa, continue to grapple with debt, poverty, and civil conflict. This is why the continent remains the most underdeveloped, leading to a brain drain of its most talented individuals to more prosperous nations. To what extent has the legacy of colonialism, in both its historical and contemporary forms, contributed to these challenges? How do we evaluate its potential, and what about the Muslim population, which numbers around 437 million – almost half of the continent?
To help us untangle and demystify Africa, we are honoured to have on The Thinking Muslim Professor Abdoulaye Ndiaye, an Assistant Professor of Economics at NYU Stern. He has written extensively about his home country, Senegal, and has recently published intriguing article examining Islamic concept of zakat and economic inequalities in the Muslim world within an Islamic understanding.
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Transcript - This is an automated transcript and may not reflect the actual conversation
Introduction
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Africa has a rich history of Islam Africa is not a monolith for some people's image
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of Africa is the malnourished child The Brain Drain is real and it's substantive
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after colonization there was a divide and conquer mindset that happened that led to
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division on a map we need to go beyond the uh Colonial barriers it's rough in Nigeria
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you need to provide uh water for your home electricity often go goes off that's why we
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need to move from Aid to talking about trade and investment Islam recommends some sort of wealth
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tax Africa is a resourcer continent with immense potential when countries within the
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continent demonstrate good governance and sound economic judgment they Thrive it is
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of course overs simplistic to discuss Africa as a monolith yet some regions particularly
0:55
subsaharan Africa continue to Grapple with debt poverty and conflict this is why the continent
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Remains the most underdeveloped leading to a brain drain of its most talented individuals to more prosperous Nations to what extent has the legacy of colonialism in both its
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historical and contemporary forms contributed to these challenges and how do we evaluate its
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potential and what about the Muslim population which numbers around 4 and 30 million almost
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half of the continent now to help us UNT angle and demystify Africa we are honored to have on
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the thinking Muslim Professor Abdullah NJ an assistant professor of Economics at New York
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University Stern he has written extensively about his home country Sagal and has recently published
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intriguing articles examining the Islamic concept of zaka and economic inequalities in the context
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of the Muslim World Professor Abdullah Alayah and welcome to the thinking muslimah thank you
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for having me in beautiful London it's wonderful to have you with us this is your first time in
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London by the way this was my second time I came uh way back when in my student years when I was in
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Paris as a student we came for the theater and I came to Cambridge for something like model un way
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back in the day uh at the time all I did was visit um the Buckingham Palace today I had a wonderful
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guide who showed me the economic history of London yes and all to see so it's really pleasure to be
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here so just for our viewers your guide was RI think you so he showed you around the economic
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highlights of London yes I think he can put that into a product the economic tour of London by riia
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what what did you see but coincident yeah so I I took we took a I took a picture with jery Benton
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you know the father UCL UCL so he is the father of utilitarianism which economists uh deal with
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grapple with a lot especially like people who work on issues around uh when you think of what is the
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best thing to do um what call normative questions so when you work on issues around inequality
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around Public Finance jery bentam says we want to do what is best for the greater good yes and
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he Illustrated this fact by saying that at his death in his will he put that they should expose
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his body so when you go to UCL there you have the bones of Jeremy bentam yes put in um uh um
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in display they put like a a body around it with clothing and all that so I had the chance to uh
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benefit from this uh utilitarian uh Act of his yes uh we saw also places where KL Marx in the library
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worked to write his desk Capital yeah uh we saw U John mayard K's uh um all old living quarters
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yeah and many other sites really uh that um gave me an an overview of the uh history and economic
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history uh of this city that's really interesting I mean um we're here today to talk about Africa
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but in in that context um many African students especially from the elites they come to London
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and to America of course to to study uh economics from a very Western lens so some of us great names
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or those names that you mentioned benam and KES and marks would would would of course be part of
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that curriculum um this may sound like a very very um uh I don't know rudimentary question
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but like to what extent are uh do we need to move away from these Western figures of economics and
Move away from western economics?
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think about different models and behaviors moving forward yeah um economics is a very
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broad field and um we it has been studied by many Western figures yeah now there has been
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a lot of a movement to understand uh developing economies uh as a laboratory where there are a
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lot of questions to answer and because growth is very important one of the reasons why I'm in this town as well is because of a conference that I co organized on structural transformation economic
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growth at Oxford yeah and uh there are uh there has been some a revolution since the 2000s of
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a credible Revolution to think of how we use me from medicine to go and study uh uh economics in
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the developing world uh this is done by westerners Africans alike uh now it has growing it is growing
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um and there have been Nobel prizes that have been awarded for development economics and development
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economics the idea really is not just to transpose theories thinking from here but really look at the
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uh challenges the frictions and the issues in Africa in the developing world and study
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those and really propose solutions that are adapted to those countries and they are and
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this research is done equally in collaboration both by Africans and non-africans Africans with
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their training in economics but also their institutional knowledge as well
Baitulmal
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oh
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fantastic I mean we I said in my introduction that uh we hope to sh shed a light or draw some
Assessing Africa’s development
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attention to Africa today and and of course it is quite depressing and maybe I I will fall into this
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trap here today but it's quite depressing that we lump all African countries the diversity of
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African countries into one into one monolith um but um um to contradict myself like paint
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me a picture of the economics of the continent like how do you assess where Africa is in terms
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of development today yeah like you said Africa is not monolith so there will be a lot of places we
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can go when we think of Africa the economies are diverse you have some economies that like Nigeria
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and Angola that rely mostly on petroleum exports while some other economies like Kenya or Ethiopia
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will focus more on agriculture okay and you have some other economies that rely more on tourism
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uh some other economies will try to do a mix of all of these uh in terms of where we are I think
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most of the growth that has happened there have been sustained growth um after the independence
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have been driven mostly by Commodities and these have been low value ad growth mostly minerals okay
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that are exported and some of the challenges has been that the infrastructure in place has been
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mostly infrastructure that is there to essentially carry these extracted minerals overseas mostly to
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Europe and there are other challenges is related to skills education and human capital overall
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which is the uh potential for people to uh uh produce Goods uh and services and these have
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these are related to these institutional factors that I started alluding to and so there are still
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challenges that are associated with that broke broken borders as well that create instabilities
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in certain areas now um the challenges in West Africa are different you have the relationship
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to manage with France and from Colonial Powers uh in East Africa you have uh some of the challenges
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related to Sudan yeah uh conflict in central Africa you have K the Congo in South Africa
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you have um issues around unemployment it's in South Africa and North Africa as well is dealing
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with its own challenges so overall uh this is the continent where growth is going to happen
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in the future uh it's a very young uh continent as well so there are a lot of uh questions to resolve
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but also a lot of good developments uh that have happened in 2024 and over this uh the previous uh
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this Century as well when we talk about you gave us a really clear picture of uh the different
Economically healthy countries in Africa
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challenges and the different regions and countries within Africa I mean if if it was one country you
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could site where where economically things are going well where would f p so I would I I think
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so uh Benin is a good example of a country that has potential yeah and uh Sagal as well where I'm
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from so uh I want to give an example so Benin has done a lot of reforms to to have in uh investment
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to take off and also has the proximity with uh Nigeria Nigeria is the largest economy in in
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Africa and also they also benefit implicitly from the fact that the Nigerian government subsidized
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uh uh energy oil and they are close to Nigeria so they benefit from it yeah but if I want to
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give just the whole picture the example I'm going to give uh of what CHS the good things and the
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challenges in Africa is actually from my where I'm when where I grew up so it's a a neighborhood in
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darar darar the cap of Sagal kerasan so I grew up in kermas we moved to K masan in this was because
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I want to talk about this the story of cities in Africa because it's good to update people's image
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of Africa some for some people's image of Africa is the malnourished child but do you want you to
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think of kermas as the Prototype of uh of some Annex part connected part to a part connected to
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a city or a city in Africa so it we moved there um it started um not many people living there uh
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good quality of air good quality of life we mov there away from the more uh dense suburbs uh kerm
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Masa uh had uh one industry uh um company that was producing ptry uh over time uh people moved
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to kermas more people moved to kurasa it became larger City and one of the challenges that uh
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and the city started growing uh some uh low to middle- income people were living there then
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there was flooding happening all around Sagal and these are some of the issues both related
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to urban planning okay in cities without strong urban planning but also related to climate change
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so people there were more people who moved to K Masa but also it started being more dense and
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congested so you have cities that are dense and congested and in these cities there are D and
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you have a lot of economic activity now in kermas there is a big market so you have a lot of informal activity happening right so this is without formal accounting procedures yes uh
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and um this economic activity very Dynamic 50% of GDP in Sagal is in this informal sector um
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now this economic activity also in terms of how it organized has some drawbacks right so these
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are small scale businesses so you the medium and small Enterprises they some of them fail it's hard
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for them to get financing uh and to scale up to go from the table in the market to the uh
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to the store to a supermarket so you mostly have small stores and uh as well what came with this uh
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congestion as well is that the that main industry this Sida had to move to another place okay so
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pollution being also one challenge as well okay as is uh examp in this example representing also that
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you have cities that can be very polluted um one other point in this particular K why I mention it
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also when we think of Africa often the element of uh security comes into play so that's where
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the dhar race you know the big trucks that used to go from Paris all the way to darar passing through
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the Sahara used to arrive near Lake redba near kurasa yes and um that's a beautiful Pink Lake
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it's really beautiful to see so when I was a kid we used to go and watch the these giant trucks
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and motorcycles and SUVs Crossing all the desert and come arriving there that beautiful race uh
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has moved uh to South America at some point in the UAE and then it stopped I think and mainly because
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of terrorism and instability in Libya in all the uh Sahara as well so it's also microcosm an
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example of the issues that happened around Sagal and in Africa as well of sometimes uh conflict
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and instability and uh it's a city now that has become ker masad one of the largest cities with
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a lot of youth unemployment as well okay so a lot of potential like say a lot of young people a lot
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of energy and dynamism okay but uh a city that has a lot of challenges and that's an example for me
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of the updated view of Africa for people um that's a thank you very much that's a very um evocative
Young demographic
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picture you you paint of of your your home city um uh you talked there about one of the benefits
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of uh kiram Masai is a young demographic now uh we often associate uh Africa to be overpopulated you
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know and that's a very crude way of putting it and and many Western economist argue that um as
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you urbanize and as you modernize your population will slow down and your younger population slow
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down so in our minds at least in the west we associate countries in Africa that have large
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burgeoning populations to be somewhat of a curse in inverted commers uh is that how you see it
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when it comes to when it comes to afria yeah uh not at all I think um it's actually uh there are
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challenges associated with finding jobs for for the youth yeah but it's more short term right I
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think the challenge really is how to harness this potential yeah uh currently uh 75% of Africans are
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less than 35 year old right and Africa is supposed to be the labor force of the future yeah and now
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the question is how can it attract centel from around the world where it could allow to earn
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higher wages now um that I think is the way to to to answer the question I think the examples
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of countries like India are pretty useful for many African countries which is uh how to develop yeah
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uh an IT industry that is strong enough Broadband accessible all around so that we can develop
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services that can be uh useful for the world now these services like in the example of call center
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and other IT services as well for and increase also the uh educated population that can do uh
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these jobs as well the reason why I mentioned is um we have we need Industries as well those are
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important but when you look at um service on the service part um this is a place uh where
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we can do a lot and uh we already have mobile phones so Africa Li frogged from going from the
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phone lines not to the computer directly to the mobile phones people use mobile money um
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more than 35% of mobile money users say they use it also for saving right so the question is how
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do you have internet accessibility all around so that people can do productive activities from uh
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their phones as well so I think really this notion of productivity pushing it uh can uh
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be beneficial for the Youth and can be beneficial for population at all so I don't think that there
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is any policy whatsoever that needs to be done in terms of controlling population uh we China is
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has a very large population and China has found ways to grow in it certainly with manufacturing
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helping a lot Africa needs manufacturing there are challenges we we can talk about it uh but uh
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that's uh I think it's a uh it's a it's more of a uh an opportunity than a challenge and how real is
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the brain drain in countries like senal or Nigeria where talented individuals you know people who
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have uh who've acquired those the the those skill sets that are very much in demand in in say um
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Silicon Valley yeah how much is does that account for the loss to the continent yeah so the brain
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drain is real and it's extented the way I want to think of the brain drain is you do not need to to
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support a country or your country uh or to help or work for your country uh you can be contribute to
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your country's uh production you can contribute to your country yeah not only through your own labor
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but through adding more Capital to your country and one way is investing yeah there are a lot of
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remittances coming from uh the West uh to uh to more developed countries to Africa however these
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remittances they often come to supplant some basic social services that government should provide yes
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so this is what is called usually the family tax okay it is that these remittance often they are
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there because there is a lack for example for of coverage of health insurance so they are there to
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cover Health uh issues Health bills that's often and so I think really we should think of how also
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the diaspora African diaspora can benefit also by in Investments now we know in investments in
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particular there are investments happening uh mostly uh in many parts so for in Sagal
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part is in real estate um and this is related to challenges of for businesses to operate um the
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bus for small and medium Enterprises they really need this financing and this financing is limited
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because of issues that uh are specific sometimes they are to the developing context or more more
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acute the developing context is uh like in this informal activity that I mentioned when companies
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do not have clear financial statements at the end of the year that you can read like that you have in the west then you need to deal with uh assessing whether the company you are investing in
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will be someone who's be trustworthy and whether when they operate they will deliver if you are
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have a partnership that is based on Equity meaning that you are sharing uh the profits and losses yes
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which is kind of the Islamic model of thinking of how we do partnership in business so that's what
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limits uh these Investments as well uh Venture Capital can go around this because they don't
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invest in the very small and medium Enterprises they at the largest scale so they will go off with
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on dinner ERS and have conversations with Founders and assess and use some credentials to judge but
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that's not something that is scalable because you cannot go and have a dinner and a conversation
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with every farmer but also you don't have a registry that told you how well they performs if
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they had loans in the past so these are challenges that are really with economic challenges these are
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some things we really understand in economics the problem what we call adverse selection which is to
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select the person you you don't know whether this will be a person who has a good project that you
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can uh that they will work on yeah and the other problem that even after investing in this person
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because you don't have formal records uh you are not certain that this is how much they produce if
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you invest in a farmer if they take a part of the production there is no way for you to verify so
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now these are what economists call often frictions challenges that do not allow the seamless trade
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and Investments happening and these are places where governments can operate to think of really
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how to reduce these barriers and that can drive investment and also productivity of uh firms so
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the come back to come back to the question of the brain drain yeah I think there can be some
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technology transfer coming from uh the diaspora who learn other methods of doing there have been
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a lot of evidence that both the diaspora is beneficial to the host countries so in
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America for example we find inventors uh uh the uh immigrants um contribute a lot to Innovation
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similarly as well uh the diaspora contributes with new ideas because ideas are important
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in a society yes with new ideas with different ways of doing things and bringing also some of
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the standards as well uh in terms of production uh in uh from the West yeah and they can benefit
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as well they can be useful by uh tying the Investments Beyond real estate to look at
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the issues of uh the solve to solve the issue of investing in medium and small uh Enterprises okay
Africa needs capitalism?
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so the context of U uh this conversation today is you know the the live reality of of Africa and um
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um of course the context is that Africa has embraced or been asked to embrace many
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of the the sort of the basic precepts of free market capitalism in fact uh just today we were
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discussing off camera The Economist has a front page that Africa needs capitalism um like from a
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from from your perspective as a as an economist yes does Africa need more capitalism or needs
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does it need to because for some of what you've just sugested there in terms of like refinement of of bureaucracies and um refinement of of um of uh economic activities I mean that that
25:09
sounds very much within a within sort of that capitalism framework so how do you like what's
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your view about more capitalism in Africa yeah so I think the term capitalism is often uh loaded
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so I will rephrase things and make a statement related to that I think Africa needs more growth
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today um more sustainable growth and a structural transformation transformation of the way in which
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we produce things um because one thing that is very important for a country to develop is how
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much you can produce from the same amount of Labor the same number of people working the same hours
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yes or the same amount of machines Capital right so that is productivity yes right we need to First
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increase productivity right and there are the the ways in which you increase this productivity have
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nothing to do in with capitalism per se this is about educating people better this is about all
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the barriers that can make production of the same number of machines or the same number of hours
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yeah larger right soic frictions exactly right so those frictions now yeah but I think thinking
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of capitalism essentially just thinking of uh looking at the role of capital in the economy
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expanding that and also really emphasizing on that part alone at the detriment of having a healthy
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Society uh and educated youth is not what I see as beneficial to to AF to Africa so in a sense
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when we mention capitalism a lot of there are a lot of common sense things things you want to
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do uh to reduce those frictions to me that are not inherently bad things about capitalism but
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a society that emphasizes on mass production right which is producing more but I'm really emphasizing
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more on producing more of the same things rather than just producing more for its own sake if
Capitalism - free market
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we take one aspect one very important aspect of capitalism is a free market economy and I suppose
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the principle there is that internally the economy should be run as frictionless as possible but also
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there should be very few barriers to trade in terms of um uh external trade and foreign direct
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Investments and and now you know I suppose when when the West talk about capitalism they probably
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maybe referring to this aspect of opening up countries and and making sure countries are not
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uh do not have protections to trade now um you know the left would argue that that leads to uh
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a that leads to a decline of homegrown Industries and it leads to I I remember reading many years
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ago a you know in Cameroon to purchase a to purchase milk uh from a local farmer is far
28:13
more expensive than to get milk powder that's ex imported in from from Germany so just you know
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focusing on that free market aspect if you can um you know are there any negatives to embracing that
28:28
that part of capitalism yeah so to answer this in the context of let's say subsaharan African
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countries I think I need to go into a little bit of history please of how the economies
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came to be around because that is important I think uh in many African countries in the postc
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colonial time um the industry the economy was mostly extractive so the Nobel Prize winners of
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this year was they were awarded for thinking of the institutions that were created by ex uh
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that were uh settle settle colonialism when they settled uh places where uh Europeans could settle
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ended up to be uh more developed because they built institutions that were more lasting while
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where they couldn't settle because mortality was difficult yes they mostly extracted the resources
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and left and if you look at many places in Africa the that's were those extractive institutions that
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remained yes now I prefer the better word instead of extractive that sounds like this is just a
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adjective but extraction happened so this was an active Act of extraction that happened and when so
29:47
European countries extracted resources yeah they didn't build the infastructure in place for trade
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to happen within right they mostly built port and ways to asinate from the train to the port and
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to the boat to Europe yes right now why is this relevant these institutions they are persistent
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so they stay over time even if like you see for example in Italy in if you go to Florance the
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same families that in the uh 1400s that were the richest are still now the richest right and so
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this time is not that far off we are 60 70 years from that now this exists now this institutional
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reality is a reality in Africa so now when you look at then trade within Africa is very low and
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this is one reason as well we don't have the infrastructure NE necessary to do this value
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added Creation in our own goods and services we produce Beyond minerals adding them refining them
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and trading between us within Africa so trade with Europe with China is much stronger yes now
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facing this reality now let's answer your question now so what should we do should we liberalize
31:03
trade all together yes right and uh should we or should we have some protections right I and I want
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to examine this in the light of the institutional factors I mentioned and another point which will come next which is on the geopolitical reality of our time now so first in light of the institutions
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so what happens actually you see African countries are mostly importers right so they export
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uh raw materials and they import final goods from uh they import milk that is processed uh
31:36
from overseas and um overall so they are not competitive with other countries yeah and I
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think here there is an argument for doing what is called industrial policy so industrial policy
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is looking at looking at the reality where we are now now we can follow and produce those goods in
32:00
which we are the best at relatively so that's why we what we say we have comparative advantage this
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is recardo idea I remember from my undergraduate days yeah so you focus on producing yes uh you
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know wheat another producing cloth yes however um there can be sometimes even some impediment
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to be uh because of the bad infrastructure in place uh low productivity in gulture and so on
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so there is room there to decide okay you know I'm I want to uh invest in strengthening the
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agriculture industry and looking at for example caca uh I in civo which has been their staple
32:47
where they have been exporting it yeah and say okay let me subsidize so that they can refine
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it to add value or let me subsidize exporting it so these they are inter inventions of the
32:58
government so they are not in a sense capitalist uh policies right and but they can be useful uh
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I think um for for Africa so industrial policy targeting Industries rather than just individual
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firms because if you target individual firms often you create winners and losers within firms and it
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can create this cronyism uh within with these uh sometimes weak institutions yeah all right and um
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now so on the point now you mentioned right is you can have milk being imported in Cameroon uh while
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you know they just sell the raw milk directly yes in Sagal is an example where you see also
33:42
a lot of even on the Stalls in the streets you see imported goods okay so I think there is room there
33:51
to do industrial policy to uh limit uh these now it's going to be true that uh really the reality
34:01
is productivity is low in agriculture and so we need to think of how to to mechan yes right the
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other point I wanted to mention as well is that the one of fragmentation the fact the world we
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live in now which is if you look at trade a lot of trade now is happening not just purely driven by
34:23
this ricardio idea but also when people say like oh I'm going to trade trade with my uh friends
34:29
and I'm not going to trade with my enemies and this is something to keep in mind as well as um
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uh we have a regime change in the US uh Donald Trump is going to come and Donald Trump said he's going to put a 100% tariff on uh bricks uh countries okay so uh what is the response of these
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countries should be I think it there is room for them to prioritize trading among themselves and
34:57
and uh have trade agreements strengthen tra trade agreements okay but um there are challenges with
35:04
the trade agreements uh within and um for example if we go take the case of West African countries
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uh you have eoas which is our economic and Trade Agreement yes uh the difficulty is there have
35:19
been some countries uh that are under military rule now and they've decided to create the sahal
35:26
states uh group and uh the sahal state group see the eoas as more of a institution that is under
35:33
the French control and they want to uh exit this agreement and their notice has it's going to be a
35:41
year soon uh that this will be in place uh then there are challenges related to how they will
35:49
navigate uh strengthening this eoas or having uh splintered groups uh when it comes to to trade um
35:59
so in Africa trade really is a key element that needs to be strengthened and that uh in response
36:07
to the other geopolitical realities out there uh we need to think of uh carefully how to uh
36:14
how to develop it uh between Africans uh there are different groups you have uh Eastern group Eastern
36:22
group have their Trade Agreement Southern Group Northern African group and Central African um
36:27
and West African uh groups having different trade agreements yes and really um strengthening yeah
36:36
yeah uh the AF under the African Union umbrella but the African Union has not been as effective in
36:43
in this uh there is the the African uh uh zav in French African free trade uh area uh that is put
36:53
in place as well but this hasn't been as effective into getting uh uh trade to expand so can I pick
African Union valuable?
37:01
up on on on that point about inra African trade because um I've always wondered whether the
37:08
European Union is is a fantastic project but just in the wrong continent the wrong place because uh
37:14
these nation states are very Consolidated and uh the divisions between European States as we can
37:20
see today are becoming FAL pronounced whereas when we consider uh Africa I mean these are
37:26
postcolonial constructs in many ways uh cultures and peoples do not confine themselves to the
37:33
nation state boundaries M as as as much as maybe some European countries you know these divisions
37:38
are not as as pronounced in Africa even though sometimes leaders come along who try to carve out
37:44
those divisions like how much would how valuable would be like a European Union full integration
37:50
we're talking about economic and political union with free trade and with free movement of people
37:56
with a single curency like how realistic but also how valuable would such an organization be for for
38:03
Africa as a continent I think it would be very valuable yeah uh one of the strength of Nigeria
38:10
is that it's a Federation of 200 million people wow yeah and when uh businesses start in Nigeria
38:16
they have access to a large market so if you look at all the billionaires almost from Africa
38:21
for Africa they have it's the same blueprint most of them are from Nigeria and they work in Staples
38:27
that feed uh millions of people and they have large Market access right now how do you the
38:37
on the issue of uh peoples in Africa and the barriers like you know after colonization there
38:44
was a divide and conquer uh mindset that happened that uh led to division on a map uh of different
38:54
countries uh in Africa these there's this these divisions often do not map to ethnicities uh and
39:02
language groups in the continent yeah one example is the fani uh tribe which you can see all the way
39:09
from Sagal all the way to ner uh and so on so the whole sahal region yes and they are in different
39:17
countries um they there are a few variations in their language which is the same culture and they
39:23
can be Nigerian they can be cameronian they can be ghanan they can be sagales they can be guinean
39:30
they can be mamalian they can be mortanian okay um so this tells us that maybe also we need to go
39:39
beyond the colonial barriers now there is a lot of I think cheap talk around this and the difficulty
39:48
has always been Whenever there are initiatives around this either they are too uh simplistic and
39:57
utopic yes or they have been nipped in the bud uh due to geopolitical tensions and other countries
40:08
meddling in uh the the the projects oh we talking principally Western countries here yes so we're
40:15
talking about Western countries so for example uh Libya Mohamad hadfi was a large proponent of the
40:23
European uh the African union he really wanted and had a message of African Unity many people
40:31
have been killed as well pushing for African Unity sh an job was a scientist from Sagal known for his
40:38
work on uh Egypt and linking thinking of uh African origin of humanity which is now has
40:46
been established as evidence even though some of his work has been criticized for good reason but
40:52
uh he did some work but at the time it wasn't popular we have had uh thinkers like like um
40:58
kuame Kuma giving a panafrican message people like Tomas anara who was killed by his friend
41:05
who who many suspect that was working with France and um thas anara had the panafrican view but had
41:13
a view that it was through the military that the society would be somewhat educated and disciplined
41:19
to go beyond the loss in human capital that came from colonization right yes and so we had
41:27
lumumba as well all of these people who have had faced difficulty went to jail some of them killed
41:32
yes and then you had uh Next Generation coming the remaining which were mostly the ne Colonial
41:39
Elite who didn't care much about their people who were mostly put there uh because they were
41:45
there ready to accept what the West uh imposed uh on them now to have this Unity uh we need to
41:58
be realistic that we need to start from our own common zones right strengthen them use a language
42:06
the language in our time the language the lingua franka the language that all uses is not Latin
42:12
is not Arabic anymore it's English um so we need to organize ourselves around English uh we need
42:19
to strengthen our common currencies and maybe go beyond that to have uh a common common currency I
42:26
think though the those are things that can be done from the policy perspective because you know if
42:34
you ask can African government um develop their country certainly it's not up to them because I
42:42
believe it's firms that develop a country and it's firms that operate that provide jobs yes
42:49
but can they use the energy to sit at a table have conversations strengthen trade agreements
42:57
uh and break barriers among themselves again so these breaking barriers certainly you can categorize them at capitalism and maybe these are good parts of capitalism within themselves
43:06
to strengthen inter Africa trade add value to their goods okay and the caca from Ivory Coast
43:16
uh being transformed into coffee to be sent and sold in Sagal uh instead of Sagal buying uh the
43:25
nest Cafe from overseas or produce overseas uh from the same those caka beans so uh then after
43:34
developing these regions and strengthening the Africa free trade agreement we currently have
43:41
and free trade zone that is on paper we can then uh look at the question of common currency I I do
43:51
not see any reason why this cannot be a reality uh the world moves very quickly and as we have
43:59
seen uh with covid uh things can happen uh with being unexpected with AI things going to move
44:08
very quickly so I think we need more discussion of trade and investment uh among African countries
44:18
and uh that's a priority in my view and and do you feel there's an appetite for that within
Inertia from African rulers
44:23
the continent I mean I'm I I I sometimes get the impression that uh even fine the West May uh find
44:32
it very difficult want or not want to transform these extractive economies because it doesn't
44:38
serve their interest France wouldn't want that and America would wouldn't want that but at the same time you you do see some inertia from um African rulers African leaders who are uh who who do not
44:51
like the idea of giving up control over their nation state to you know what would essentially
44:57
be supranational bodies the tricky part in this uh conversation is the some countries are facing
45:08
challenges on many Dimension we know in Sudan there is a war in Congo there are uh there's
45:16
conflict related to minerals and so they might not even have the bandwidth to to have the Diplomatic
45:23
uh Personnel to to to undertake this there is also the division even in West Africa between echas
45:31
countries and the alliance of Sahel uh countries which are military uh rule which are under
45:38
military rule yeah so it's a tricky situation now the way I think this can be addressed start with
45:49
uh the relationship that these countries have with uh foreign powers with France with the US
45:57
with England with Russia as well because some of these military uh LED countries they took out the
46:04
French flag and replace it with a Russian flag yeah so what do I mean by that the discussions
46:11
around Aid should turn to discussions around uh investment and trade I think a lot of the
46:19
limitations that you have between these countries uniting is that some of the countries will think
46:26
so some this has been for example in the West African sense when you talk about having a common currency between the countries that are using currently the francea which is this uh Frank that
46:39
was the colonial Frank that whose name was turned into a sort of um Rosetta Stone that we saw today
46:47
like a dictionary inversion it turns from the uh Frank of the French colonies of Africa yes to the
46:54
Frank of the financial Comm community of Africa so just a little word twist yes so these countries
47:02
have been trying to connect with Nigeria and have potentially a common currency called Echo okay now
47:10
the difficulty has been Nigeria thinking that oh this we don't want France to be the supervisor of
47:19
our currency because essentially these countries have a fixed Peg with the Euro uh because this
47:26
is this was guaranteed by the um Central Bank in France yeah uh now the arrangements have
47:33
changed on paper uh but this has been what has historically been the case so this is an example
47:38
for you like so Nigeria thinking oh France is these are essentially under the French rule and
47:46
um those countries also thinking oh Nigeria is a big block yes they rely a lot on oil we already
47:53
seen the how the exchange rate has uh appreciate it uh a lot and the these countries are like okay
48:02
this is a risk for us to so how do we navigate this yeah uh in the end um I think these countries
48:10
instead of making a choice this can be sometimes drastic or painful and see whether the political
48:17
reality accepts it can be accepted yes to say okay maybe we want to get rid of the colonial aspects
48:26
of the currency we want to think of now from first principle given where we are if we were to keep a
48:32
common currency how would it look like would it be a flexible exchange rate regime like Nigeria
48:37
where it moves around depending on our commod Commodities or do we keep it fixed with the Euro
48:46
or with the dollar um or how do we can integrate it together yeah and I think by switching their
48:57
discussion their uh relationship with Europe and the US away from Aid to away from also political
49:08
influence and diplomatic influence at the UN we' seen Aid being correlated a lot with votes at the
49:14
UN yeah to one of just trade and investment then they can be credible that they are free of these
49:22
countries and this is a movement that is happening somewhat uh in what is called the France afri this
49:30
part of Africa that has been under French uh influence and that from this next step The Next
49:37
Step will be a discussion a strengthening really of trade between these countries uh and beyond
49:46
that they can see what the next steps will be can I ask you about two to particular countries and I
Congo and Nigeria resources
49:52
I know you know your expertise cannot range from you know you wouldn't have expertise of each and every single country intimately in Africa but it's something which bothers me I mean Congo
50:01
is an interesting example as you as you said in your answer there Congo has um a you know you
50:09
know internally it it has a problem uh but also Co you know Congo is rich in natural resources Cobalt
50:17
I think which is you know extremely important diamonds diamonds turn so the first question
50:23
really is about Congo like what is it that prevents Congo which has uh such gifted Allah
50:32
has gifted it with such tremendous resources why is it that Congo is is if not the poorest one of
50:38
the poorest uh countries in Africa and and and the second point is about Nigeria which is you know I
50:44
think you suggested or intimated it earlier on but Nigeria should be and is the PowerHouse of Africa
50:50
it's an extremely uh uh you know diverse country but also a country country which has resources and
50:59
potential in a young population uh yet uh that that doesn't seem to be using the capitalist
51:06
term a trickle down uh where uh the petroleum uh Revenue actually uh you know and and its its
51:16
impact doesn't seem to be trickling down to to the population so just take me through you know
51:21
the the Congo example which is very poor country in Nigeria which is you know far more affluent country but some of the inherent structural problems in those two countries so the Congo
51:31
example is one it's a country that is very rich in minerals so has Cobalt um diamonds copper yeah
51:40
um but it the country has been plagued by conflict and this has been um the remnants of colonization
51:50
and you had uh Decades of dictatorship uh one example is Mutu who had been there for a long time
51:56
and with the weak institutions that came out uh from the colonial period as well right these uh
52:04
Elites mostly captured the the resources from the the the proceeds of these minerals and park
52:14
them into uh tax hav Heavens around the world in the western world that are also complicit uh of
52:21
this and really didn't provide any public goods uh for their people and so what that led is a
52:27
resource curse right that you know because of these minerals not under can be captured very
52:34
easily they ex the only value is being extracted you don't need they are not creating if because
52:40
to extract minerals you don't need a even a bachelor's degree so you need to create
52:48
those other job you need to use those resources the revenues to create schools to hospitals and
52:55
educate the people so they can do the other jobs and transform right the difference between Gulf countries that they have been doing this uh diversification to transform their economies
53:05
and so people can be educated and so on so this is the issue with uh I'm not saying that these
53:10
golf countries are examples in way but I want to just give that the their resources have been more
53:16
smoothly managed in that regard and so that's really the challenge with uh Congo and the uh
53:24
there are various militia and armed factions which exploit the uh the mineral resources to fund their
53:29
operations and it's really kind of a wild west where people are uh fighting for uh these uh these
53:36
resources and the the multinational corporations that on top of and uh this uh they mostly extract
53:45
resources and do not provide uh the safety and uh provide the public goods uh necessary for this
53:53
that's kind of the uh overall big picture case in the Congo Nigeria yeah is somewhat of a different
54:00
situation because if you look at for example Nigeria right now doesn't even have foreign military presence Nigeria has been plagued by military CPS and Wars at the time uh during uh of
54:11
this uh South wanting to secced but since the 2000 Nigeria has been stable in that sense and has had
54:18
um um uh politically Federation where you have a lot of different uh stakeholders that kind of keep
54:28
a political equilibrium that is somewhat stable even though you have Sometimes some conflict uh
54:35
happening arising but overall Nigeria has uh some advantages but has been struggling lately the
54:44
advantage Nigeria had is since they faced this time after this time of instability they had a
54:51
some sort of a agreement that all factions are somewhat okay you know uh most of the oil is in
55:00
the South but there is some transfer resources to the north uh the sou is very productive Lagos but
55:07
they got to that point where they can actually go beyond just minerals and oil in that in Lagos you
55:18
have a lot of companies most of the uh in fintech for example most of the unicorns come from there
55:24
and once you start seeing company in Africa solving the problems of the people themselves
55:30
then you are you see the window of growth opening up because if it's just minerals minerals minerals
55:37
then we are still in the extractive phase and we are not going to go beyond it and this can be
55:43
trapped on the resource curse so Nigeria by having companies doing different things by having people
55:48
working also in the services sector for the world in general it has good trajectory now especially
55:55
since the under the previous uh Administration uh the bohari administration there have been a lot
56:01
of bad choices that were made um around trying to artificially keep exchange rate guided yeah
56:10
uh despite the realities that were different so you had a exchange rate of the currency the NAA
56:17
in the black market that was very different from the official one and so actually in fact
56:24
the the governor of the central Bank uh has had legal issues uh because of of corruption
56:32
around this uh AR arbitraging the the own the currency so that led to after they got rid of
56:40
uh these guided uh exchange rate artificially uh guided to be fixed and also lifting some of the
56:48
subsidies that they were doing for uh fuel that um the currency depreciated a lot so now it that
56:59
mean that means that you will have less dollar US dollars for the same amount of uh of nairas yeah
57:06
and so that's a very tough period that's what they are facing currently but I really can see also a
57:14
recovery uh happening uh for Nigeria in that once they manage these issues around the exchange rate
57:22
they've had a lot of multinationals leaving as a result uh and other companies leaving because it
57:29
just their revenue from operating in Nigeria just once they repatriated does is doesn't uh is not
57:37
that large because of this 70% drop in the value of their currency yeah which is pretty drastic
57:42
but that was the reality that they should have faced but moving forward the fact that um they
57:50
face their own challenges it's rough in Nigeria I go to Nigeria often and Nigeria doesn't have
57:57
provided uh if you live there um you need to uh provide uh water for your home electricity often
58:08
go goes off and there it's an managed schedule of uh disruptions um you also need to manage your
58:16
own security but because there is what I call a creative disruption so economists have this notion
58:26
of creative destruction which is that in firm uh in an economy sometimes you need new firms
58:34
coming in and they will topple the old firms the the typical examples is when we talk about the uh
58:41
modern cameras digital cameras and Kodak not embracing them and then you then they topple
58:47
those and that's how Innovation happens so this is the idea of creative uh destruction of shet like I
58:53
think similarly for States there is a creative creative disruption that needs to happen and I
59:00
think this creative disruption might have happened for Nigeria already for the France afri countries
59:07
for the frankophone countries it hasn't happened yet so if you go to darar darar GDP is 40% lower
59:14
than Nigeria sagal's GDP but you feel like this is a you feel like quality of life is much better
59:22
right you have Resorts you electricity all around internet water everything is running yeah but
59:30
it's all because these are managed by mostly foreign companies okay so we haven't built the
59:39
National Security resources to make these as local companies right okay and that is important because
59:47
in Sagal okay in Sagal that is also relatively the case in uh codir as well as well even though
59:54
codir has built more infrastructure than Sagal yeah and uh and and has advanced much more on
1:00:01
this on this Dimension yeah okay so I think so the issue why I'm mentioning this the example
1:00:10
of Nigeria here is I think despite the challenges they are facing they are facing their own uh qu
1:00:17
problems yeah through this creative disruption that already occurred for them yeah and now by
1:00:22
having more and more companies uh there who are solving the problems really that's what tells you
1:00:29
oh okay there is an economy Beyond just minerals here there is we can add value to things and then
1:00:35
that will push other companies foreign companies to come and also solve the people's problems yeah
1:00:42
okay that Beyond just extraction right so uh yeah I think those are uh some examples yeah U they are
1:00:52
not the example that are most talked about Nigeria many uh commentators would not give you Nigeria as
1:00:59
uh the main but I think really being such a large country such a large with such a large Market uh
1:01:07
uh it can drive a lot of Africa and his has lot of the large uh youth uh in Africa as well and it
1:01:16
has a lot of Innovations in financial Technologies and so on with its challenges yeah you you paint
Orthodox policies?
1:01:22
a really interesting picture between the quality of life in senal which is a relatively speaking a
1:01:28
poorer country to that of of Nigeria which which you know has low ched in electricity problems you
1:01:34
know um security issues and there all sorts of of frictions uh to to ordinary business and ordinary
1:01:42
life now I wonder how much that's down to the adoption of uh what would be term Orthodox let's
1:01:50
not call it capitalist but Orthodox economic policies I mean I remember a while back reading
1:01:57
I think it was danis moyo who's a developmental Economist I think in from Nigeria who argued that
1:02:04
um in a sense these Orthodox policies are are not fit in an African context and maybe sen go even if
1:02:14
if it hasn't you know it its econom is not growing so I suppose you know this is an anti-growth ism
1:02:21
argument it's economy isn't growing for quality of life of of your of senales is is far better
1:02:28
and maybe that's what we want you know we want to live uh uh you know s to sound philosophical we
1:02:34
want to live happy lives I want to qualify when I say quality of life and the car I think but there
1:02:41
are many role Parts in Sagal quality life is not as good I think I compare it more broadly also because Nigeria has one limitation that it has is the the state provides much less Services you
1:02:54
know welfare state and I think the welfare state is important yes Health uh protection uh education
1:03:01
right it's really to each their own right very low one of the lowest in the world okay yes in Nigeria
1:03:08
in Nigeria yes and uh but you have also a lot of inequalities as well okay even yeah so the the
1:03:18
but what I mentioned in darar in particular D is a very small tiny part of Sagal yet it's the capital
1:03:24
right everything concentrated it I wanted to give it as a stark difference because it's where it's
1:03:30
a kind of like a town where you have a lot of foreigners there's that this quality of life
1:03:36
is maintained mostly because you have uh foreign the businesses the large corporations are mostly
1:03:43
foreign owned yes okay and you have as well um this Band-Aid of um protection of these business
1:03:54
interests by Foreign uh governments yeah right you don't have any of that in in in in Nigeria
1:04:02
yeah and so what I the creative disruption is in the sense that you need protection when
1:04:12
there is when this is more extraction so and and this is where I want to come to the the
1:04:19
recent um uh macron statements so maon Emanuel ma the French president who said that Africans
1:04:29
should be thankful and I think uh he should call more for um a message of mutual respect than a
1:04:37
paternalistic uh call for being thankful yeah to to France to France yes Africans should be
1:04:43
thankful to France otherwise there wouldn't be any state if it were not for French troops yeah so I
1:04:49
think there is room for defending an industry when this industry is extract right you keep
1:04:57
the militia you keep some sort of protection for extracting Industries right but when there is not
1:05:06
this extractive uh extraction happening then you are just solving problems yes so this is exchange
1:05:13
that is coming out of mutual uh respect and mutual gains yes in that moment you don't need any more
1:05:20
military bases okay and that is why I'm josing and comparing the FR theal case here with the Nigerian
1:05:29
case in the sense that so the Band-Aid that is in this case is that one where everything works you
1:05:38
have electricity you have water but productivity is very low and GDP per capita is much lower than
1:05:45
in the Nigerian case where it's chaos so to pick up on that Orthodoxy point I mean so maybe Sagal
1:05:51
isn't the example but I don't know morania or there may be another example of a of a happy of a
1:05:58
happy place which hasn't urbanized and it hasn't industrialized and it hasn't it isn't obsessed
1:06:04
about productivity and growth uh yet um you know it's it's not mared with mired with uh security
1:06:13
problems and electricity problems and and crime and the rest of it like you know is that a is uh
1:06:20
you know is that even a a a conversation uh to be had in in Africa because you started mentioning
1:06:27
this uh mentioning dambisa may may Mayo's uh book yes uh dead eight yes right that's it and her
1:06:37
argument has a flavor of what I'm talking about here because her point is that eight sometimes disrupts the local Industries themselves you create you have dep eight dependencies and this is
1:06:48
a reality yes yes um the eight becomes an industry like there is a joke like you when eight comes you
1:06:58
have the SUV that comes with the Westerner in the village and then at the end the Western leaves the
1:07:06
SUV stays for the program manager of that Aid uh project domestically in the and the village stays
1:07:13
as well you know so that's the the joke yeah so I think Aid can be disruptive that's why we need to
1:07:20
move from a to talking about trade and investment right now uh on the issue of should we uh not
1:07:29
grow and for me I'm very clear on that I'm not a degrowth person I think growth is very important
1:07:36
and African countries need to grow because first of all their population grow yeah so you need to grow to at least feed uh your uh population your growing population so that in that sense these
1:07:47
measures that we often talk about like GDP gross domestic product which measures the production
1:07:54
uh within a country country in a given year of goods and services at least need to grow at the
1:08:01
rate in which the population is growing right so that you can feed more mou mouths and then
1:08:08
it needs to grow Beyond to to also that people's uh incomes can rise right so living standards can
1:08:17
rise uh people can be healthier so that also you can repay the debt that many uh of the country
1:08:25
are mired uh into so I wouldn't say that there are deep growth stories or there should be deep growth
1:08:32
stories in Africa right I think uh we cannot get around the fact that we need to grow the pie you
1:08:39
know now I think there is a lot of sensibilities for many people and also as Muslims understanding
1:08:44
that our life is not just a um um material life but also spiritual one and from my Sagal where
1:08:52
I'm from is a great example of that it's what I would call the uh World capital of Sufism
1:08:59
and uh it's a pleasure to see how this is also nurtured and cherished as well and it's part of
1:09:05
our things that value uh that people value that adds to the quality of life as well we haven't
China’s role in Africa
1:09:12
spoken yet about China and China's role in in the continent because of course in terms of trade now
1:09:17
I think China uh has a greater share of trade with uh with individual African countries than
1:09:24
yeah uh than than Europe European and American uh companies and so uh Chinese the Chinese are
1:09:30
very Central to the economic story of of CH of of Africa and uh the the the the common wisdom
1:09:40
at least that that which is which is disseminated by by the Chinese and supporters of Chinese is
1:09:46
that you know China does not come in to to Africa with that exploitative um uh underbelly that many
1:09:53
Western companies have and and China does not require you know the thick values of liberalism
1:09:59
and and human rights in order to do trade and and in a sense when Chinese companies do uh access uh
1:10:09
uh resources uh there is there is a a a a a more delicate footprint I suppose of those companies so
1:10:17
how do you R rate China versus you know European and maybe even Russian and American companies in
1:10:24
terms of it in terms of in terms of Africa yeah I think um so it is different yeah in form but not
1:10:32
in China is different in form but not in terms of outcomes I think they get paid in a different way
1:10:39
right so uh European and American companies uh are the European countries as well get paid in
1:10:48
the form of like their um extra um resources as well China gets paid in terms of uh geopolitical
1:10:58
uh geopolitical Power so many of China's uh investment so they didn't they have done a
1:11:06
lot of infrastructure funding they built the Adis ABA jibuti uh Railway yeah and uh they often will
1:11:16
have a clause that allows them to seize some asset really like yeah like so uh Angola exchanged oil
1:11:23
for roads Hospital uh and housing built by China and um the they they will be able to collect some
1:11:34
asset on the other side in case the country doesn't repay right and also often we found
1:11:40
there is some evidence as well in terms of voting at the UN as well voting along the lines with CH
1:11:46
for China uh for countries that received this uh uh Bel um uh belter Road initiative from China
1:11:55
so I think they get paid in a in in a different way either in kind in some sense and so um but
1:12:03
they give concessionary loans lower lower uh rates for for to buy to buy for this
1:12:09
geopolitical power in the in the global uh scene and uh the way I think about now maybe
1:12:16
what is the uh the attitude of what should be the attitude of um African countries I don't see
1:12:25
uh that African countries should try and say hey look we are geopolitically strong uh like in the
1:12:32
way in which the US portrays or China or Russia but rather uh be more focused on economic outcomes
1:12:41
understand the fragmentation of the world and make countries pay for uh and have a geopolitical
1:12:48
competition around them not limit themselves to one partner and I think that's the message
1:12:53
we keep many countries just limit themselves to their former Colonial right Master yeah but now
1:12:59
just say okay we are Partners we negotiate we look at what China offers we look at what
1:13:06
Russia offers we look at what the US offers and I think this is important um and even uh for people
1:13:13
who are also in Western institutions as well to understand that uh we do things for Humanity we
1:13:19
are not Western um um spoke people but really we want to think of uh for African countries what is
1:13:30
in the best interest it's not replacing a French flag with a Russian flag but what does um they
1:13:37
they provide conditions each of them that the US to deal with the US you will not deal with China
1:13:42
uh to deal with the US you will not deal with Iran or you will not deal with Russia um they
1:13:49
believe that certain values are strong better than other values Africans might have different values
1:13:55
and Africans even um within themselves might be split on these values as well so to each of them
1:14:02
to look at uh the competition the geopolitical competition and not try to say okay I'm also
1:14:08
geopolitically strong often what happens that is that then you have a military Invasion coming
1:14:13
your way Libya is one example yes so I think it needs to be strategic understand the reality be
1:14:20
realistic that yeah uh each of the countries are not on their own military strong geopolitically
1:14:27
strong but they can have their sovereignty not have Colonial presence in terms of military in
1:14:34
a military form or monetary form okay like having a monetary uh Colonial money yes and say now okay
1:14:43
I'm ready to trade uh with everyone I'm ready to also geopolitically have alliances but I'm
1:14:49
open to others as well uh and you know uh let the competition in a fragmented world now uh that uh
1:15:01
that you know but we often I think often sometimes uh some countries will do the mistake of kind of
1:15:09
forcing some sort of Al alignment either through historical uh arguments and often these are flawed
1:15:17
there hasn't been Africa has been in many parts of Africa colonized being at War and suppressed in
1:15:23
the world stage yeah so we uh we should take this more as an opportunity to develop our economies
1:15:29
and be pragmatic and strategic rather than just benevolent alignments uh in your answer there you
Islamic African values?
1:15:36
talked about values and the values of Africans but of course yeah uh as you said you intimated
1:15:42
Africa is a very diverse continent now at the very beginning in my introduction I I spoke of
1:15:47
the 400 million Muslims in in Africa so that's 40 45% of Africa are actually Muslims which is
1:15:55
is you an astonishing figure really um uh how important uh are the values of of Islam in the
1:16:05
economic future and the economic story and the economic narrative uh of of uh of Africa a large
1:16:12
population of Africa is Muslim like you said if you look at the map of Africa this sahal is kind
1:16:20
of somewhat of a delimitation of what used to be the limit to the northern north of the sah you
1:16:27
have Islam and then now you have more and more mus Muslim even in some parts of sou central Africa
1:16:34
South Africa Eastern part of Africa is has large Muslim populations and also North part yeah now
1:16:42
the values of Islam really are present here and are important and I think when I talked about um
1:16:51
financing medium and small uh Enterprises the idea is really how to think of to think of how to scale
1:16:59
the arrangement that our Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him had with his wife Khadija which is this
1:17:06
uh profit and loss sharing agreements yes which what Islamic Finance is supposed to really put in
1:17:12
place so there is work that U some economists are doing to address these issues I told you earlier
1:17:21
of uh how to select projects adverse selection yes and how to avoid the challenges with not
1:17:29
having good information on firms and so on so I think these issues right how to scale medium and
1:17:35
small Enterprises can benefit a lot from what we learned in Islam and take that as an opportunity think of how can we have Equity arrangements and develop them for these yes uh for these countri
1:17:45
so that's one thing um the other elements is that we can avoid uh using Islamic principles
1:17:55
a lot of issues that plague uh the Western world and I think you know even in the principles of
1:18:02
business being Halal to avoid uh gambling that can create problems we see that gambling has
1:18:12
been on the rise a lot in Africa so gambling platforms now are everywhere they there are
1:18:19
gambling platforms connected with sports okay they uh they create a lot of risk and they make uh some
1:18:26
people lose all their incomes uh and it becomes very detrimental so using these principles can
1:18:32
avoid uh a lot of these uh issues uh we have as well in a lot of usage of the internet is
1:18:40
pornography we know and this is another industry that is fr upon by our religion and I think the
1:18:47
world is waking up also to uh the usage of alcohol and many of the new generation will tell you that
1:18:54
they will probably see alcohol as we used to see smoking tobacco uh 20 years ago right right and
1:19:03
uh the question around also finding solutions to riba is really addressing this problem and
1:19:10
which is a problem in Islam really also is at the Forefront of some of the things that uh
1:19:15
um Muslim majority nations in Africa face as well okay among other nations yeah so there
1:19:24
are many there is many a lot of Reliance on debt we rely on external debt yeah there have
1:19:30
been one of the most contentious elements around internation in international organization right
1:19:36
now uh like the IMF and the uh discussions with the African countries is the credit rating of
1:19:44
African countries so there is this what we call Global Financial cycle that when overall the
1:19:53
you for the US economy struggles then this will in turn make the poorer countries or
1:20:03
and some African countries as well less likely to be able to repay their debt yes this leads
1:20:09
to the uh Credit Agencies the credit uh um rating agencies uh downgrading the debt of
1:20:20
African countries even though they might have a good history of repayment so many of these African countries found this unfair because this Global Financial cycle is not their under their
1:20:31
own responsibility but it's a reality that when the economy overall the all World struggles they
1:20:38
think that Africa will struggle more yeah okay so there is this realization that African countries
1:20:46
many especially subaran African countries cannot keep on going with paying interests north of 8 9%
1:20:55
and thinking of other alternative Investments with the private and Public Partnerships based
1:21:01
on Equity is at the Forefront as well of some of the principles Islam um and also how to raise uh
1:21:12
local finances so local financing we have modes of Taxation uh Islam uh s uh recommends some sort
1:21:21
of wealth tax uh you have diff challenges of collecting that wealth tax uh same as income
1:21:27
tax um like in the in the developing world or and in Africa as well because you don't have
1:21:33
income statements but uh where a lot of African countries are going is strengthening property
1:21:40
taxation right because property is often like is a investment vehicle that you can observe it's not
1:21:47
moving anywhere so you can tax it so you have a lot of reforms to increase property taxation but
1:21:54
to kind of wrap up the answer of this I think I wanted to end though by saying that for this
1:21:59
particular question uh Africa has a lot of has a rich uh um history of Islam uh we have had the
1:22:09
soot khalifat um uh we have had um a lot long presence of uh Islam in Africa since 1200s uh
1:22:21
we have had uh writings in aami script which was this Arabic adapted to the local languages and in
1:22:29
these writings uh you read uh lessons about how to raise a family you read lessons about the prophet
1:22:39
sallallahu alaihi wasallam you read lessons about economic principles you read lessons about um how
1:22:46
to manage uh the court system and so I think building on its version of Islam its version
1:22:57
is endogenous version of Islam and also it it is understanding and accepting version of many
1:23:04
of the Sufi Brotherhood that were there Africa can benefit a lot from this lesson of Islam and
1:23:10
I wanted to give an example so it is the mid Brotherhood in in Sagal the midia Brotherhood
1:23:17
which is one important economic power yeah and and this uh Sufi Brotherhood organizes and creates a
1:23:26
lot of public spaces uh mosques um hospitals and they all farm together under the their she uh in
1:23:36
the summer they go and farm and then they collect uh in Tuba region and helcom the from the peanuts
1:23:44
that is formed and from these they will build the city essentially and they create trade networks
1:23:51
as well all around the world not only in Sagal but around the world in the US in France and
1:23:57
everywhere they are where they unite they invest back home as well and the they are all driven by
1:24:03
their religion and their shared values and that they make benefit their families and
1:24:09
their country and their Brotherhood in general Professor Abdullah I think that's been a really
1:24:14
fascinating conversation today I could probably go on for another hour and a half but I think we have to we have to pause there so thank you so much for your time today thank you very much for
1:24:24
having me it's a pleasure to be here in this studio in London and to have seen such a wonderful
1:24:31
places and to have walked through uh places where John mayard KES Jeremy banton's um embalmed body
1:24:42
embalmed body lays and to be in the room where Carl Marx has written D capital and to meet youum
1:24:54
thank youkum Salam please remember to subscribe to our social media and YouTube channels and head
1:25:02
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