I think one way African countries are making moves for the better is through regional integration. How can those countries ever become important players on the global scene if they don’t trade amongst themselves? I believe that an increase in regional trade will not only reduce poverty—because many Africans are small traders who can gain a lot by trading their goods with neighboring countries—but also that will help increase security and prevent future conflicts. However in order for that to happen, governments will have to implement many trade agreements to which they committed but never implemented. I think improving the trade environment is more urgent than the infrastructure problems. Of course countries could use better roads but even the existing ones haven’t been used enough for the betterment of ordinary citizens.

Mitigating corruption and strengthening the rule of law is the only way Africa can sustain the economic trend and attraction of investors. Corruption bleeds most, if not all the negative elements that affect investor confidence.

Africa needs a safe, reliable, low-cost airline network to allow trade to flourish.

Building and maintaining an airport with a 3km runway is easier and cheaper than building roads and railways over thousands of Km of bush.

The mobile phone networks and payment facilities that go with them are devloping quickly in parts of Africa and would allow a low-cost airline to sell tickets with a minimum of fuss.

Unfortunately, African poltics and pride make this unlikely to happen. Individual countries want their own airline operated by their own people and this usually results in fatal accidents.

A successful low-cost pan African Airline would need finance and cooperation from several countries and would have to import piloting skills from more developed areas of the world.

East African Airways worked reasonably well for a while, perhaps one might arise from the ashes.

The happenings in Europe have shown that even countries that have common currencies, markets, and tariffs cannot be looked at as one; the spreads between the PIIGS and say Germany / British Bonds, or the freezing out of Spanish banks from interbank markets are just a few examples.

Consultancies need to take a microscopic look into the continent and spot out specific countries, industries that present opportunities to their fee-paying clients. They will also see, in terms of integration (transportation links, common tariffs, et al) the continent of over a billion people still has a long way to go.

Truth be told, growth has been unprecedented but the continent needs to build both solid infrastructure and soft infrastructure (education and rule of law) or else the so-called growth will only benefit the companies with headquarters in the Western world.

Interesting, but I would have thought there would be more emphasis on the need for improvements in physical infrastructure —near, if not, at the top of the list of necessary improvements for enhanced inflows of FDI as well as improving market access and reducing transport costs for exporters and also importers.

Now consider these. There are four countries A, B , C , and D .

Country A has a sparse population, lots of arable land but no growth in economy or productivity is seen.
Country B is over populated, it cannot feed its domestic market the food grain it produces.
Country C is neither over populated, nor does it use its land for agriculture, but for oil.
Country D is mildly populated, and uses its land to reserve resources, not only for agriculture.

Country A leases its land to Country B .
Country C has a trade treaty of oil for food with Country C.
Country D supplies the necessary technology to Country B for agriculture and high yielding products.

Country A can be represented by African nations and Latin American nations, Country B as China and India, Country C as the OPEC countries, Country D as the developed nations.
Now does solve the world hunger problem? Mildly so, you may think.

Saudi Arabian investors have spent more than 100 Million USD for getting barley, wheat, and rice from leased land in Ethiopia. China has similarly invested in larger land deals in the African nations. Probably this is in our new future!

But to underestimate the bureaucratic hassles of the host country would be over confidence. Venezuela recently banned outsourcing deals of land, and similarly some other African nations too. Land deals are in fact not new. The Economist recently said that around 15-20 million hectares of farmland is under talks or lease for an amount of deals worth 20-30 billion USD.

What benefit does the host country have? Here are some pointers:

1. Consider this an opportunity to align it as a lease for growth concept. The host country should take this as a means to use the foreign country to invest in infrastructure, industries, and economic growth.

2. Leasing agreements should not be of 99 years, or even more than 10 years, after which the lease would be renewed again for the growth versus a lease strategy.

3. Around 20 to 35% of the food grains made in the host country must be kept within the host country. This would solve malnutrition of the some of the poor countries. Also, the rest should be allowed only to go back.

4. Ban on the exports of such crops produced by the foreign country. This would lead to further escalation of issues regarding trade barriers.

5. G-8 should lay down a definite structure to the land outsourcing deals in the next meeting.

6. More transparency is required to deal with such issues for deals between two governments by taking people into consideration, so that when it comes to actual deployment of the strategy, implementation would be smooth. People should see the advantages for working and growing crops for a foreign country.

I am surprised to see that Accra’s name is missing from the list of major cities. I think with the political problems in Ivory Coast and new oil finds in Ghana, Accra is already on the way to becoming one of the major cities in this part of the world.

While the interactive is a good attempt, it leaves a lot to be desired and presents a perspective on vital signs without delving into the country-specific situation.

Being in Africa for sometime, we on the ground have a totally different understanding and depth about the economies. A macro view of Africa would be preposterous from the investors’ perspective unless the ground realities of economies are delved in detail for an investment decision. And usually in the African context hard numbers do not work well, unless the undercurrents and underpinnings of the economy and its political climate are well understood.

Yes, All I would like to sum up by saying that it is a high risk and high reward zone and largely still a virgin territory—and therefore the risk-reward trade off is very good—as compared to other stable zones or continents across the globe.