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African Economic Outlook 2008 Chairman: Honorable Charles B. Rangel, US House of Representatives Co-Chair: Honorable Donald M. Payne, US House of Representatives Presentation: Dr. Charles P. Oman, Head of Strategy, OECD Development Center Ms. Lucia Wegner, Africa Coordinator, OECD Development Center Dr. Peter Ondiege, Principal Research Economist, African Development Ban Discussants: Dr. Peter M. Lewis, Director, African Studies, Johns Hopkins SAIS Dr. John D. Sullivan, Executive Director, Center for International Private Enterprise Mr. Franklin C. Moore, Deputy Assistant Administrator, Africa Bureau, USAID Mr. Julius E. Coles, President of Africare

Event Description:

The OECD Development Center and the African Development Bank will present the recently released African Economic Outlook. 

Produced annually by the Development Center and the African Development Bank together, for the first time this year, with the U.N. Economic Commission for Africa, the African Economic Outlook (AEO) is the essential economic reference on Africa.  Now in its seventh year, the AEO presents a comprehensive analysis of economic, political and social developments on the continent.  It is unique in applying a common analytical framework to the 35 countries it covers – accounting for 95% of the continent’s output and 87% of its population.  The AEO is the only report on Africa produced by African institutions, in partnership with international organizations.

Key findings of the 2008 AEO include:

• Africa registered STRONG GROWTH for the 5th CONSECUTIVE YEAR (5.7% GDP growth, 3.7% per capita growth) in 2007, expected to remain strong in 2008 and 2009.
• Yet THREATS to this favorable growth outlook have recently INCREASED due to a GLOBAL ECONOMIC SLOWDOWN and FOOD PRICE INCREASES.
• Strong overall growth also MASKS important DIFFERENCES between oil exporters (with 6.8% expected growth in 2008) and oil importers (4.9% expected growth in 2008) in the region:
• Rising oil and food prices threaten both economic and political stability in oil importers (including traditionally stable countries, e.g., recent food riots in Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Egypt, Niger, Senegal); moreover short-term palliative measures, e.g., reducing taxes on food imports, can jeopardize longer-term growth.
• This policy dilemma points up a need to ACCELERATE AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTION:  Africa’s productivity per hectare is the world’s lowest.
• Oil exporters need to do more to DIVERSIFY and develop their non-oil sectors (Africa’s 7 least diversified economies are all oil exporters).
• Oil and mineral exporters need also to CAPITALIZE on their windfall gains by INVESTING MORE in POVERTY REDUCTION, notably through HUMAN DEVELOPMENT, and in INFRASTRUCTURE (4 of the 5 lowest spenders on education are oil exporters; Africa’s percentage of secondary students receiving vocational and technical training is the lowest in the world; Algeria and Nigeria do however allot some oil profits to funds targeted for poverty reduction and infrastructure).
• GOOD economic and political GOVERNANCE has become even more CRUCIAL in this delicate period for economic and political stability.
• Many African countries are plagued by the dual challenges of HIGH UNEMPLOYMENT and critical SKILLS SHORTAGES (half of Africa’s youth, some 133 million young people, are illiterate; many have few marketable skills; over 20% in sub-Saharan Africa are unemployed).
• Africa’s youth needs VOCATIONAL TRAINING and EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITIES. Creating more training programs is not enough – such programs MUST BE INTEGRATED into local education and employment policies, and focus on sectors with good employment prospects.
• TECHNICAL and VOCATIONAL TRAINING systems account for only 2% to 6 % of education budgets in Africa. (ENROLLMENT in such systems in 2001-05 was 5% in sub-Saharan Africa v. 19% in OECD countries – and 23% in North Africa!). 
• The INFORMAL sector is the largest employer and source of training.
• A STRONG PARTNERSHIP with the PRIVATE SECTOR is crucial for creating skills that are relevant for the labor market.

Regarding US POLICY INITIATIVES, the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) provides incentives for African countries to develop their exports to the U.S.  Yet over 80% of total U.S. imports from Africa, mostly oil, comes from only 4 countries – Nigeria, South Africa, Angola, Gabon – while most of Africa takes little advantage of the opportunities created by AGOA. The U.S. 2006 African Global Competitiveness Initiative (AGCI) thus seeks to strengthen the export competitiveness of African enterprises. It promotes technical and financial assistance to help improve the business and regulatory environment, strengthen local firms’ knowledge and skills to take advantage of market opportunities, increase their access to financial services for trade and investment, and enhance investment in infrastructure.

Biographies:

Congressman Charles B. Rangel, Chairman of the House Committee on Ways and Means, is serving his 19th term as the Representative from New York’s 15th Congressional District, comprising East and Central Harlem, the Upper West Side, and Washington Heights/Inwood. Congressman Rangel is also Chairman of the Board of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, Dean of the New York State Congressional Delegation, and a founding member and former chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus. A graduate of New York University and St. John's University School of Law, he has spent his entire career in public service, first as an Assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, and later in the New York State Assembly.  

Congressman Donald M. Payne has represented New Jersey’s 10th Congressional District since 1988. He is a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, where he serves as Chairman of the Subcommittee on Africa and Global Health and as a member of the Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere and the Subcommittee on International Organizations, Human Rights, and Oversight. He has served twice as the Congressional Delegate to the United Nations, a position to which he was nominated by Speaker Nancy Pelosi and appointed by President Bush. A graduate of Seton Hall University, he pursued graduate studies at Springfield College in Massachusetts. He holds honorary doctorates from Chicago State University, Drew University, Essex County College and William Paterson University.

Charles P. Oman is Head of Strategy at the Development Center of the OECD.  Author of best-selling publications on international investment, economic development, corporate and public governance, and the policy challenges of globalization and regionalization, he holds a Ph.D. in economics from the University of California at Berkeley. A native of Berkeley, he has taught economics there, at the Graduate School of Business Administration (ESAN) in Lima, Peru, and at the École Nationale d’Administration (ENA) and the Institut d’Études Politiques (Sciences-po) in France. He has served as policy advisor to the governments of Chile, Korea, Peru and South Africa, and as a corporate director.

Lucia Wegner is Project Leader for the African Economic Outlook and Senior Economist at the OECD Development Center. Holder of masters degrees in Development Economics from the London School of Economics and Bocconi University, her fields of expertise include micro-finance, privatization processes, vocational training and the monitoring of political conditions in Africa. Previously she worked at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the Development Co-operation Office of the Italian Embassy in Vietnam, UNCTAD, and the UN Division for Sustainable Development in New York.

Peter Ondiege is Principal Research Economist in the Networking and Research Partnerships Division of the Development Research Department (EDRE) of the African Development Bank. He coordinates the network for Eastern and Southern African Countries as well as Investment Climate Assessment and African Competitiveness Reports jointly undertaken with the World Bank and World Economic Forum. He holds masters and doctorate degrees in economics from the University of Tsukuba, Japan. Prior to joining the Bank in 2004, he was an Associate Professor at the University of Nairobi, Kenya.

Peter M. Lewis is Director of African Studies and Associate Professor at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University. Holder of a Ph.D. in politics from Princeton University, he has authored and edited numerous publications, including Growing Apart: Oil Politics and Economic Change in Indonesia and Nigeria (2006), Deregulation and the Banking Crisis in Nigeria (2002) and Africa: Dilemmas of Development and Change (1998). He has consulted for the Ford Foundation, the Carter Center, the World Bank and USAID, and is a senior associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

John D. Sullivan is Executive Director of the Center for International Private Enterprise (CIPE), an affiliate of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and Chair of the Advisory Committee to USAID on Voluntary Foreign Aid. He was Associate Director of the Democracy Program that created the National Endowment for Democracy, and worked on minority enterprise development for several years. Holder of a Ph.D. in international relations from the University of Pittsburgh, he has written extensively on anti-corruption, corporate governance, and market-oriented democratic development.

Franklin C. Moore is the Deputy Assistant Administrator for the Africa Bureau at USAID. Previously Director of the Office of Environment and Science Policy within USAID’s Bureau for Economic Growth, Agriculture and Trade, he has also held positions with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency; with Africare, where he was a regional agricultural business specialist, resident in Zimbabwe; and with the Peace Corps, where he was Associate Country Director for Agriculture in Ghana. He holds a masters degree in Agricultural Economics and a certificate in African Studies from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a bachelor’s degree in Econonomics from Yale University.