2/7/2025–|Last update: 08:21 (Mecca time)
Le Monde newspaper said that the former CEO of the United Nations Economic Committee of Africa Carlos Lopez called on Africa on the eve of the Fourth International Conference on Development in SevilleTo build its own financial system, without waiting for help from anyone.
The political economy professor participating in preparing for the Fourth International Conference on Development, which opened on Monday in Seville – in an interview with Lawrence Karamel with the newspaper – asked Africa to stay away from the northern development model.
Lopez said when asked, does the conference meet the needs of Africa? Approval of the closing statement took place before the opening of the conference, which confirms that any negotiations will not be held in Seville, indicating that this does not mean an absence of the results, although it is certainly less than what Africa is entitled to expect.
He stated that the real issue and the fundamental problem is still ignoring the discussions, which is the issue of obtaining capital with fair conditions, noting that the reform of international financial institutions to provide more soft loans, and to find tools to encourage the private sector to increase investment, steps in the right direction, but they are secondary and remain mysterious.
When explaining the just conditions, Lopez warned that African countries do not find it difficult to borrow from international markets or from banks, but that borrowing, if any, is on high conditions, and set an example of the major credit rating agencies that continue to evaluate African risks based on SovereignAlthough it is rarely doing it elsewhere.
Beware of the illusions of growth
And when asked about the effect of dismantling American Agency for International Development Official development aid has declined from other donors, the political economy professor said that the return of the American president Donald Trump To power, the world brought the world to another dimension of pluralism and financing global initiatives, as it negotiates each deal in a difficult way without a comprehensive collective vision.
Lopez called on the African countries to learn from the consequences, and to establish the official development assistance policies that surrounded themselves, stressing that it does not call for abandoning everything that is useful, but it is mentioned that this aid has not yet led 6 decades, to a structural shift in its economies.
The economy professor warned of “the illusions of growth”, explaining that Africa will be of the best economic growth in 2025, according to expectations. International Monetary FundBut this growth is still external growth, depends on the export of natural resources, as Africa is still stuck in the extractive colonial model.
Another example is that Africa does not make a sufficient transformation, yet Lopez sees Africa is essential to managing the main trends that will form the world of tomorrow.
First, in terms of the population composition, Africa is the only continent in which the number of people in work age will continue, in light of the aging of the population in the industrialized countries and China, and secondly that all jobs cannot be converted into automatic jobs, and the ancient world will remain in need of African youth in work and in absorbing the production of high -tech goods on which its economic structure will depend increasingly.
Great capabilities in the field of renewable energy
Finally, there is a climate issue, as the continent not only has the strategic minerals for environmental transformation, but also has great potential in the field of renewable energy, such as solar energy and wind energy andGreen hydrogenTo remove carbon from the global economy.
Africa finds itself more marginalized when we do not look at international relations from the perspective of common public interests, and always remains as a bottle unless it looks at its huge potential.
When alerting the interviewer to the professor of economics that Africa, which he considers essential, appears to be more marginalized because of the redefinition of the international game that Trump has imposed, he said that Africa finds itself more marginalized when we do not look at international relations from the perspective of common public interests, and always remains as a bottle unless he looks at the capabilities he described.
Lopez stated that the Kofid-19 pandemic has clearly revealed what the structural hypocrisy in relations with Africa, and explained that this is to launch endless promises without fulfilling them and without the need to justify them, at a time when people’s lives were at stake, but the Africans with their scarce resources, adapted, and their reaction to the pace is exceptionally.
When asked, what should African leaders do? Lopez replied that what Africa needs is not more advice on how to integrate into a model that he considers is suspended. Rather, Africa must search for solutions, and stop waiting for miracles from others.
The economy professor concluded that Continental Free Trade Zone Which was launched in the midst of the pandemic was evidence of the political will, but it must be proceeded with the treatment of the main problem, which is to reach the capital by building our own financial system, especially since more than one trillion dollars deposited in pension funds and other financial institutions in Africa, but most of them are investing in institutions abroad.