News Analysis: African experts in Bamako to hammer out strategy for development

The 15th edition of Bamako Forum which is a platform that brings together hundreds of African intellectuals and business leaders, is being held in Mali under the theme "African Vision 2035: Challenges and Opportunities."

To concretise the vision, the experts said it was important first to diagnose the continent's developmental challenges in order to adopt better strategies for boosting economic growth, reduce unemployment and fight against poverty.

According to Alexis Kalambry, the president of Mali's Network of Economic Analysts, the Founding Fathers of most African countries did not visualise the role of private sector and preferred to use a centralized and paternalistic state system.

He noted that African under-development has equally been brought about by "bad governance, corruption, lack of technological transfer from the developed countries and failure to transform local raw materials."

"On the economic front, there's still much to be done," said Pierre Gahimbare, a Burundian economist attending the Bamako Forum.

The economic experts highlighted lack of leadership in Africa as one of the major challenges for the development of the African continent.

"Few of our leaders understand that development is a program that needs to be planned and carried out in phases. In Africa, we can only cite Cote d'Ivoire, Rwanda or Cape Verde as the countries whose leaders have a development vision. Others are still hiding behind hollow slogans," Gahimbare said.

Speaking during the opening of the forum on Feb. 19, 2015, Mali's President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita urged African countries to come up with their own solutions to development challenges.

However, the experts expressed hope for the continent's future, especially on the political front.

"Democratic standards are now known and those who violate them are getting more and more condemnation both in Africa as well as on the international scene," said Kader Toe, an independent columnist with the Malian press.

Most economists attending the Bamako Forum agreed that to develop, "African countries must avoid getting into partnerships that only improve our purchasing power or make us a consumer market."

In this regard, Kader and Gahimbare were convinced that China was Africa's best ally in the development process.

"China is the only true development partner for Africa," an African diplomat accredited to Bamako said.

The diplomat attributed Africa's under-development to the "white elephant projects," meaning Europe's prestigious investments that did not benefit Africa at all.

A Malian history teacher, Amadou Diallo, agrees with the diplomat. "Most of these costly projects did not achieve anything positive, other than impoverishing our states further," he told Xinhua.

"The Chinese are pragmatic in their approach to partnership. They give us interest-free loans, invest in our infrastructure and support our development process," the diplomat affirmed.

The Malian president said the priority now should be making Africa more attractive to the capital from African diaspora as well as to other sources of foreign capital.

He said a solution will come through, among others, adopting a better approach to issues of governance and also African banks starting to offer sufficient funding to both short-term and long- term projects. Endi