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Economic Development, Houston, Lance McNeill, LBJ School of Public Affairs, Sustainable Investment in Africa, Texas Africa Business Summit
The great state of Texas is the 15th largest economy in the world according to government figures, so why wouldn’t it host a bilateral trade summit with an entire continent? Being a native Texan, I’m blatantly biased and more than likely annoyingly proud when it comes to these sorts of statistics, but the Texas Africa Business Summit was about strengthening relations between the countries of Africa and the United States.
I was lucky enough to attend the event on Thursday September 27th. Normally I wouldn’t have been able to afford the $235 one day registration fee, but being an entrepreneurial minded student, I emailed the organizers and requested a scholarship, which they generously provided.
The Summit was held at Rice University’s James Baker Institute of Public Policy in Houston. The port of Houston/Galveston is the second biggest in the United States and the combined countries of Africa account for the port’s largest trading volume. The event attracted delegates from across Africa: Dr. Maria Luisa Abrantes, President of the National Private Investment Agency; Greg Marchand, President of the American Chamber of Commerce in Zambia; Isak Pretorius, CEO of Agribusiness Commercial Development of Africa; Peter Pretorius, Founder and CEO of Joint Aid Management International.
Thursday’s sessions included four panels featuring these experts: Panel one, Sustainable Investment in Africa; panel two, agriculture and agribusiness; panel three, Africa’s energy power, and panel four, rethinking financial innovation. The recurring theme I noticed in each panel was the emphasis on finding an appropriate local partner for any type of potential venture. Dan Blackwell, founder of Sustainable Business Development Services, reiterated that “sustainable business development requires targeted community development.”
Although this prerequisite was stated very matter-of-fact, and indeed it can be claimed as prudent due diligence for any business, my experience as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Namibia reminds me that it isn’t so easy to accomplish. If sustainable business development requires targeted community development then sustainable community development requires a plethora of existing conditions to be successful. First, a foreigner must overcome any xenophobia and for Americans, all the stereotypes that accompany the stars and stripes. Sustainable community development requires need assessments surveyed at the grassroots level and finally, it requires community buy-in and engagement. Understandably, it can take months and, more than likely, years to accomplish these feats.
Dr. Vijay Mahajan, author of Africa Rising, and professor at the University of Texas’ McCombs School of Business expressed it an appropriate term “Ubuntu”. Ubuntu, a Zulu word meaning “I am because you are” is an excellent motto for sustainable development. We don’t have a direct translation of this word in any Western language that I am aware of and it’s because the social structures in Africa are so different from ours. It takes time and a great deal of patience and understanding to understand the different cultures that exist in Africa and this is the most challenging hurdle for American investment in Africa.
Greg Marchand, President of the American Chamber of Commerce in Zambia says that others, notably China, have done a much better job than the US in Africa. He says that compared to China, the “United States hasn’t even shown up to compete in Africa.” Although I would agree with him, that the US needs to do a much better job, the insinuation that China has not made its share of mistakes in African development is concretely false. Greg believes that America’s competitive advantages in Africa combine infrastructure, energy grids, transportation, and supply chain. That may be true for technical competitive advantages, but he omitted qualitative advantages that I believe are also American core competencies that will greatly benefit Africa. Those core strengths include: a respect for human rights, gender equality, equal justice, and worker’s rights. In combination with the technical advantages, these are competencies that could overshadow China’s progress in Africa.
Yet, we must first focus on a paradigm shift. US Ambassador Tibor Nagy Jr. put it perfectly when he said that American needs to view Africa as an opportunity, not a problem; looking at them through the windshield and not the rear-view mirror.” Admittedly, this is one area that I will concede to the Chinese. The areas of agribusiness, energy, and finance are all exploding with abundant opportunities in Africa and America is poised to take full advantage, but we have been poised now for decades and while we mill, emerging powers are taking the lead, leaving us well behind.