 Rwy'n cael ei wneud, maen nhw'n mynd i'r Tom Arnold. Rydyn ni'n gweithio'r cyflawn i'r hostau Dr Carlos López, rydyn ni'n cyflawni'r union afri ac yn ymddangosiaeth yn y cyflawni'r cyflawni, ac yn y EU post 2020, y post wedi'u gweithio yn y Juli 2018. Felly mae'n amlwg spesifatau a'r amlwg spesifatau. Diolch yn ddod i'r perffasio'r Ffyrdd mewn ysgolwyddon o Gweithredu Rhade, ddiddorol, ac i'n meddwl i'w amdano'r ffyrdd i'r gynhyrch sy'n meddwl i'r gwbl fan o'r ffrindiau, ddim yn gweithio i ddod i'r mynd i'w Gweithredu Rhade. Good afternoon everyone and a very warm welcome to the Institute of the International European Affairs seminar, part of the development matters lecture series that we in Irish eight are happy and more than happy to support. Thanks to AIEA for your continued fruitful collaboration on this. My name is Down overflow N, the director of a multi lateral unit in the the Development Cooperation and Africa Division of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. Before this, I was the Irish Ambassador to Uganda and Rwanda. This Development Matter series continues to provide stimulating thoughts and ideas on issues relating to global development and Ireland's role in that. The government's new policy for international development, a better world, sets out clearly our approach and our priorities for the coming period in terms of strength and governance, climate action, gender equality, reduced humanitarian need, and also at a focus on reaching the furthest behind first. Today, therefore, we are more than happy to introduce Dr Carlos Lopez, the African Union High Representative for Partnerships with Europe. He will deliver remarks on a topic which is very close to our heart here in Ireland. Can Africa claim the 21st century? Dr Lopez was appointed as the High Representative in 2018. From 2012 to 2016, Dr Lopez served as the Executive Secretary of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa. Indeed, during his tenure, he welcomed the President of Ireland, Michael D Higgins, to UNECA in 2014. In that same year, he was a guest of us here as well for the African Ireland Economic Forum. He is no stranger to Ireland and it's great to have you back on our shores. This is also a very timely time, isn't it, because of the changes that are afoot? We've got on the one hand a new leadership in the European Union, an attempt to rejuvenate a true partnership between Europe and Africa, and on the other hand reforms in the EU, the African Continental Free Trade Area, the abundance of opportunities that Africa presents, and also the number of challenges that are faced in that continent, not least, for example, climate change. Dr Lopez is a professor at the Nelson Mandela School of Public Governance at the University of Cape Town in South Africa and visiting professor at the Institute of Political Studies in Paris. He's most recent book called Africa and Transformation, Economic Development in the Age of Doubt, is in the words of the former UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, a compelling rethink of traditional development models in Africa and the need to seize on transformational change to build a sustainable future for the continent. He also runs a very exciting blog called Africa Cheetah Run. Thank you, Google it. You will find it very quickly. With these few remarks, can I introduce to you please Dr Carlos Lopez. Thank you. With your permission I'm going to do it from here. Well, thank you for the commercial about Africa Cheetah Run. There is a story behind it. Africa is on a catch-up mode, so it needs to run very fast and the cheetah is the fastest animal on earth. So it's a way of saying Africa needs to run at the speed of a cheetah. But beyond the speed there is also another message that is implicit because part of the ideas about Africa rising that have dominated some of the specialized financial media, the economies, financial times, et cetera, resulted from a report produced by McKinsey which title was Lions on the Move. And this is a provocation to basically send a message that lions are about show off. Lions are very lazy, their effectiveness is very low, so they go for anything and they get very little and they are not gender sensitive. The lionesses do all the work. So we need completely to overall this idea that progress in Africa is going to be in the image of a lion which is basically about grabbing the headlines but not doing much. The cheetah is the opposite of all that I said about the lions. Narratives about Africa tend to be negative as we know. Embedded in historical simplifications and dismissiveness has become quite current including in our perceptions of Africa from a geographical point of view with projections that are used mostly in the Mercator projection giving us an idea of the landmass of the continent does not correspond to reality as we know. Africa is much bigger and therefore it is much more important for us to try to understand the complexity because of the larger than usual complexity and reality of the continent. But we also know that most of the Africa rising narrative that has resulted in some counterintuitive perceptions being finally addressed as limited for a large extent to business opportunities and giving the idea that in Africa we have new business opportunities and more voices admitting that the possibility of an African century are based in this principle or this perception. The adoption of UN millennium declaration in the year 2000 and its companion, the millennium development goals has indeed inaugurated a new era. Prescriptive structural adjustment policies were replaced by goals meaning different ways of attaining objectives or in economic jargon policy space. Around the year 2000 the millennium declaration is from the year 2000 to demonstrate a different pattern of economic behavior. For the last 18 years African countries systematically dominated the list of the top 10 fastest growing economies in the world. For 2020 the just released IMF forecasts indicate that 16 of the 30 countries with the best growth performances will be in Africa and 23 African countries will post growth of 5% or more. Economic growth resulted in Africa doubling its GDP since the year 2000 and even though growth has slowed down due to a challenging global context the continent's performance is second only to Southeast Asia. A number of socio-economic indicators have also fueled the African century narrative. By 2010 the middle class had risen to 34% of the African population up from 27% in the year 2000. Such growth in the middle class is higher than the growth rate of the population although the growth rate of the population is taking a lot of importance in terms of the overall performance. The middle class although arguably still vulnerable is viewed as the fuel to the economies of the continent and in fact two thirds of our growth is a result of internal consumption. Very much the same as in the US. In 2017 household spending has reached $1.6 trillion after crossing the $1 trillion mark in 2010. This is on par with large economies such as China in terms of percentage. By 2025 household spending is projected to reach $2.5 trillion according to estimates by McKinsey and Brookings Institution. The growth experience alone is indeed not sufficient to claim the 21st century. Africa grew quickly but transformed slowly. Therefore putting in jeopardy many of the gains so far registered. The forecasted 3.6% growth for 2020. This is the last forecast from the IMF remains way short of the 7% minimum required to double the average per capita income in let's say a decade. This is partly due to the fact that too many African economies still depend on the production and export of primary commodities. The good news is that attractive solutions are known. Translating growth into meaningful development for African countries will require an aggressive industrialization agenda. Africa is not a desert when it comes to manufacturing and industrialization. Attempts to industrialize in the 60s and the 70s by adopting the model of import substitution and mixed results. While this led to some remarkable progress it quickly showed the limits of state led production rather than state led facilitation. Manufacturing value addition as a percentage of GDP has been declining since the introduction of liberal policies promoted by the structural adjustment programs. However, since the overall economy has grown considerably, the value addition percentage hides the fact that the real production of manufactured goods has gone up significantly too. Yet the concentration of such industrial base in a few countries and sectors demonstrate that the structural transformation is still missing in action. The quest for industrialization is not, therefore, over in Africa. Domestic manufacturing in Africa has doubled between 2000 and 2010 according to the African Development Bank and continues to increase. Agro processing, south east Asia delocalization of low value added manufacturing, as well as commodity based industrialization, hold the key for a more radical transformation. So these three, agro processing, south east Asia delocalization and commodity based industrialization. For many African countries endowed with natural resources, focusing energies on exploiting and transforming that wealth can be far more promising than trying to diversify away from commodities. So basically this is called vertical diversification rather than horizontal diversification. Despite criticism of this model of industrialization, increasing the productivity of commodities, largely due to the argument that it is unlikely to promote linkages. Experiences from other resource rich countries such as Argentina, Chile, Malaysia, Thailand, Australia, Norway and even close by Scotland show that such model can deliver economic development. Examples from within Africa itself demonstrate that such model can be promising in terms of developing elements of an ecosystem that promotes innovation, value addition as well as quality employment. A case in point is what Botswana has done with diamonds. On the other hand, agriculture represents also an important vehicle for resource based industrialization. Agriculture accounts for almost 65% of Africa's employment and 75% of its domestic trade. In addition, the agribusiness sector has already made some strides on the continent and it's potentially significant with estimates putting its value 1 trillion by 2030. The sector can generate significant productivity gains in rural areas with vibrant ups of agribusiness and linkages across value chains. To fully reach its potential, it will be important to improve land productivity. Africa's land productivity is stuck at 1.5 tons per hectare while countries like India land productivity has grown from 0.95 tons per hectare to 2.53 in just 50 years. This is despite the fact that agricultural land in Africa is 3 to 6 times larger than in countries like China and India, both of which, despite having much lower available agricultural land per capita, have successfully managed to secure food for their poor, while Africa continues to be the world's most food insecure region. Small scale farmers will be important players in this transformation as well as the way we treat different elements of the equation such as the way we deal with farm equipment, farming techniques, fertilizer seeds etc. Transforming African economies through a resource based industrialization will not be easy. It will require innovation skills, robust knowledge base of the industry structure and the global value chains understanding. It would also require African countries to be particularly attuned to the global training landscape, including barriers and preferences. Above all boosting intra-Africa trade remains imperative for creating the markets that are needed for successful industrialization. The entry into force of the African continental free trade area is potentially an important game changer. Africa has since this year the largest free trade area in the world by size with its 1.3 billion consumer market and by number of countries. 54. The combined consumer and business spending is expected to hit 6.7 trillion within the next 10 years. The Economic Commission for Africa expects the African free trade area to expand trade by about 52% in just 20 years. Admittedly the transition will not be without consequences, at least for some time. Experiences in countries that have undergone such transformations and adjustments show that there is a strong historical pattern of worsening income distribution between rural and urban economies during the initial stages of structural transformation, this famous Cusnets curve that economists love. As the urban population in Africa is projected to double in size to eventually reach 2.3 billion in the next 40 years, it is likely that such pattern would be further accentuated by these trends. However, we also know from historical data that absolute poverty does not necessarily worsen during such episodes, therefore reducing the risk that the strides made in fighting extreme poverty in Africa in the last two decades are unlikely to be reversed. The IMF estimates that in the last two decades poverty in Africa has been reduced from 60% to 40% of the total population. Transformation requires capital, which will need to be generated in international markets through foreign direct investments etc. Yet Africa remains marginal as a destination for foreign investors. Such reluctance is often justified by exaggerated risk perceptions, often dominated by security and governance concerns. The turn of the century witnessed some progress in relation to political governance. Despite pockets of violence, there is consensus that the nature of politics in Africa is changing. 20 changes of leaders in the last 26 months, just to give you an example. The appetite of the continent's population for political participation has increased as demonstrated by political contestation, events such as the one you have just followed in Sudan and Algeria, but many more that have taken place before. Youth, particularly those residing in urban areas, operate in political spaces in similar ways to their counterparts elsewhere in the world. They have access to information, social media. In addition conflicts have receded across the continent in terms of number of casualties, largely driven by political governance improvements across the continent as measured by the most comprehensive governance index. Despite the decline in the number of conflicts in Africa, the continent continues to be viewed as conflict-ridden. Unlike Asia, conflicts in Africa are not looked at in isolation, unfortunately. The conflicts in Mindanau do not shape the image of the Philippines. The Sabah insurgency does not shape the image of emerging Malaysia. There were about 29 piracy attacks in 2009 of the coast of Somalia as compared to 150 attacks in the Strait of Malacca between Malaysia and Singapore, but this is not the perception of most people. The Naxalite insurgency and the issue of Kashmir do not shape investors' image of rising India. South Korea remains unaffected by its proximity to its belligerent sister in the north. Indeed, despite the widespread nature of conflict in south and southeast Asia, the region is branded as dynamic rather than unstable. Perceptions therefore count. Structural transformation requires a different type of engagement that taps into the potential of the continent rather than sees it as a high-risk region or at best a charity basket case. Development aid, albeit still important in specific cases, cannot single-handedly transform African economies and may be a contributor to this image problem. Africa's youth can be an asset if also we take some of their agency and some of their energy as a transformative element of what is happening in the continent rather than seeing it just from a conflict perspective. Reaching the full potential of the continent requires political courage to ask all international partners to look beyond their perceptions. It is time for international partners' engagement to shift from policies and frameworks driven by perception to those driven by reality and a common vision for the future. The youth bulge in Africa, if managed properly, is for instance not just a fuel for African economies but for the rest of the world, especially in Europe, given ageing. A recent study by the Bertelsmann Foundation, a very reputable foundation in Germany, has shown that intra-EU migration will no longer be able to cater for the needs of the German economy. They will require an additional 146,000 workers per year from non-EU countries. This is just one example. Africa's youth is currently viewed largely as a threat rather than an opportunity with EU caving into pressure from right-wing politicians. The reality however shows that Africans are far from being the main group of non-EU migrants entering Europe. The rate of Chinese migration to Europe is for instance twice the rate of arrivals from Africa. Which is not the perception again that most people have. Those wishing to migrate also tend to be more educated in Africa. Concerns about refugees is also unjustified as Africa continues to bear the brunt of wars with 80% of the refugees of the continent remaining in Africa. A future focused engagement also requires international partners to move beyond classical development aid models. Limiting Europe's engagement with Africa to mechanisms of aid disbursement that have been in place since the 70s does not bode well for the future. Where the youth thought to be innovative it developed initiatives with no consultations with African countries and in isolation of a plethora of initiatives and mechanisms in place in Africa that Europe has put in place without proper consultations with the continent. These fragmented approaches to dealing with Africa carry obviously the risk of ineffectiveness but also a political erosion of goodwill. There is a Somali saying that goes like this. He who does not seize opportunity today will be enabled to seize tomorrow's opportunity. For the African continent its leaders and people and for international partners now is the moment to make the Africa century a reality. Thank you.