Address by His Excellency Ngwazi Dr. Bingu Wa Mutharika
President of the Republic of Malawi and Chairman of The African Union
29 March 2010, Lilongwe, Malawi
EXCELLENCY THE FIRST LADY OF MALAWI;
THE RIGHT HONOURABLE VICE PRESIDENT OF MALAWI;
THE CHIEF JUSTICE OF MALAWI;
MINISTER OF FINANCE OF EGYPT AND CHAIRPERSON OF THE OUTGOING BUREAU OF THE CONFERENCE;
CHAIRPERSON OF AFRICAN UNION COMMISSION;
UNITED NATIONS UNDER SECRETARY GENERAL AND EXECUTIVE SECRETARY OF ECONOMIC COMMISSION FOR AFRICA;
UNITED NATIONS UNDER SECRETARY GENERAL, SPECIAL ADVISOR ON AFRICA AND HIGH REPRESENTATIVE FOR LEAST DEVELOP COUNTRIES LDCs), LANDLOCKED DEVELOPING COUNTRIES (LLDCS) AND SMALL ISLAND DEVELOPING STATES (SIDS);
MINISTER OF FINANCE OF THE REPUBLIC OF MALAWI;
COMMISSIONER FOR ECONOMIC AFFAIRS, AFRICAN UNION;
HONOURABLE MINISTERS OF ECONOMY, FINANCE, AND DEVELOPMENT PLANNING;
GOVERNOR OF THE RESERVE BANK OF MALAWI AND ALL GOVERNORS OF CENTRAL BANKS;
REPRESENTATIVES OF REGIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS;
DEAN OF THE DIPLOMATIC CORPS AND ALL MEMBERS OF THE DIPLOMATIC CORPS;
DISTINGUISHED INVITED GUESTS;
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN.
I am delighted to welcome you to the Third Joint Meeting of the Ministers of Finance, Planning and Economic Development organised by the African Union Commission and the Economic Commission for Africa. This meeting has been convened to promote high level sustainable growth to reduce unemployment in Africa. I also hope that it will focus on issues of poverty reduction and food security.
Honourable Ministers
I wish at the outset to reiterate what I have been saying over the last two decades that Africa is not a poor continent but it is the people of Africa that are poor. This is premised on the realisation that Africa has huge and unexploited wealth consisting of natural and mineral resources, wildlife, fish, river basins, lakes and huge arable land. These are not being exploited or utilized by Africans.
The task before you Ministers, therefore, is to produce an action plan that will enhance fast macroeconomic growth of our continent, increase employment and reduce poverty. You are not here to lament the state of underdevelopment of Africa. Neither is your task to point a finger at non-Africans for finding ourselves in poverty. Your task is to come out of this conference not with a plethora of resolutions, declarations and communiqués but with a concrete plan of action that will take Africa out of the poverty trap.
You will agree with me that many of us are almost intoxicated by this liturgy of declarations, ending up in no action.
As Ministers of Economic Planning and Development and Ministers of Finance, you have the required competence and mandate to make things happen. You can change Africa for the better. So my question is, are you ready to act and act now?
Honourable Ministers
The agenda for Africa is indeed very simple. We need to launch each and every African country on the path to sustainable development and on the road from poverty to prosperity. In order to do this the economic development pundits have prescribed various prescriptions in the past. Many of them have been implemented to the letter by the African governments and yet Africa is still classified as a least developed continent more than fifty years after attaining independence. What is going wrong?
The “Washington Consensus” tells us that African countries must stabilize first in order to grow. And I am saying no. Africa must grow first and then stabilize. So there goes the battlefield between what Washington wants us to do and what Africa wants to do. The choice therefore is between Africa appeasing Washington in order to get a few dollars of donor funding or indeed for some of us to get jobs in Washington, or to take action now to rescue the majority of our people out of poverty.
African governments now must implement home-grown policies conceptualized, designed and owned by the African people. Such policies must be implemented, monitored and evaluated by our own experts. In such a paradigm, the role of the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the development partners would be to support the home-grown policies and to ensure that macroeconomic growth and development are sustained.
The choice is also for Africa to take action that will bring Africa to the level where we can effectively participate in global finance and economic issues. What will be the African choice?
Honourable Ministers
Empirical evidence shows that what Africa needs today is not “macroeconomic stability”. We need rapid and sustainable level of economic growth within a stable political and economic environment. What does this mean?
A stable political environment embraces democratic governance, rule of law, safeguarding human rights, holding regular polls, fair and credible elections. It also means building a national dialogue and consensus for majority parties to accommodate legitimate concerns of minority opposition parties. It also means opposition leaders gracefully accepting defeat when the electorate has spoken through the ballot box.
A stable macroeconomic environment on the other hand involves maintenance of low interest rates in order to allow ordinary citizens to borrow money, service their loans and grow their businesses. It involves the Government maintaining a low rate of inflation in order not to allow the price structure to escalate beyond the reach of the ordinary citizens. It also involves the maintenance of a stable exchange regime that makes it possible for financial and planning institutions, the business community as well as the civil society, to predict with a reasonable degree of certainty, what the value of their investment, wealth and bank accounts will be six months, one year or two years down the line.
This is the essence of good governance. Fast and sustainable macro-economic growth results from good governance. Indeed empirical evidence shows that no economy in the world can grow if it is poorly governed. In Malawi we have proved this to be true.
Honourable Ministers
Distinguished Guests
Ladies and Gentlemen
What is the future agenda for Africa? You may recall that at the last meeting of the African Union in February this year during which I was elected Chairman, I proposed, and the assembly of Heads of state and Government unanimously agreed, that for the African people to escape the vicious circle of poverty, we must make certain determinations and take certain actions. We agreed at that meeting that agriculture and food security should be top priority for the next five years. We agreed that food insecurity disturbs peace and security in our Continent.
We therefore resolved that five years from now Africa must be able to feed itself and that no child in Africa should die of hunger, malnutrition or starvation.
This, Honourable Ministers, is the African battle cry. This is your battle cry.
We must move very fast to establish the necessary instruments and financial mechanisms to ensure that this battle against hunger is won within the period of five years. We can do it and some countries are doing it.
The Assembly of Heads of State and Government decided that agriculture and food security will be top priority. This is simple because a hungry Africa is an angry Africa. We also recognized that a nation that depends on other nations to feed it cannot claim sovereignty. Africa therefore has agreed that we must conceptualize food security on a regional basis.
In other words, the Southern Africa Development community, the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa, East African Community, Economic Community of Central Africa, the Economic Community of West African States and the Maghreb Union must ensure that they are food secure. This must be followed by inter-regional structures for agricultural development and food security.
I am therefore proposing that we produce a comprehensive and reliable inventory of staple diets of major tribal groups and determine which countries can produce such food crops even if their people do not necessarily depend on those staple food crops. In doing so, we shall strengthen regional economic integration and hence African unity through food and agriculture.
Honourable Ministers
The other relevant question is how do we transport food from surplus to deficit areas? For this to happen there is need to add transport infrastructure as an integral part for successful regional cooperation and economic governance. In other words, we must have reliable structures to move food cheaply from one country to another within each regional economic community and also among all regional economic communities within the African Union.
If we can achieve this, I believe we will strengthen the foundation for a viable African Union.
Another critical sector to support agriculture and food security is Energy Development. This is so because we need to ensure value addition to food crops and products through processing or semi-processing. This will develop a new generation of agro-industries in Africa. In order to do that we need sufficient and reliable energy.
The African union has therefore agreed to strengthen the national and regional power generation capacities and to interlink the related power grids throughout Africa. That way Africa will have assurance that at any time we will have enough supply of energy to run our industries and manufacturing plants.
Honourable Ministers
Before I close, let me bring to you another dimension of agriculture and food security. This involves increasing investment in agricultural subsidies.
For a long time the “Washington Consensus” did not tolerate African governments’ policies towards increasing investment in agricultural subsidies. We were told that poor African farmers in rural areas must compete through free market structures with highly advanced farmers in industrialized countries. We were also told that subsidies reduce market liberalization and are not conducive to good governance.
Unfortunately, Africa accepted this falsehood. How wrong we have been and what a price we have paid.
I think time has now come for Africa to stand up and take a decision at the national and continental levels to subsidize our poor farmers so that they can grow enough food beyond subsistence. We did it here in Malawi and the results are there for all of you to see. In Malawi food security is firmly assured.
Honourable Ministers
I am pleased to note that the G8 development partners are now disposed through the L’Aquila decision to assist Africa not through the traditional food aid but by increasing our food production capacity. This is indeed a very welcome policy paradigm shift. If implemented this will not only guarantee food security, sustain food growth and development, but we will also increase employment especially in the rural communities who are generally considered as unemployable.
I now end by underscoring that the future of Africa is in your hands, Honourable Ministers of Finance, Planning and Economic Development. You are the ones who control the development agenda, the budget, and the monetary basket. You must not rise out of this conference without defining a clear development path and how Africa can get out of poverty. If you do not do this, you will have failed yourselves. You will have failed Africa. You will have failed humanity
God Bless You All
God Bless Malawi
God Bless Africa
