The Second Japan-Africa Business ForumCharles BoamahSenior Vice President – African Development BankMr. Boamah expressed his appreciation on the message of President ofAfrican Development Bank for the growing partnership between Japan andAfrica in general and between Japan and African Development Bank.
He stated that the African Development Bank was established in 1964
with the mandate to support the socioeconomic development of Africancountries. Today, the bank boasts of 80 member countries, including
Japan.
Japan is actually the third largest shareholder of the African Development
Bank and the second largest non-African member country. The AfricanDevelopment Bank enjoys AAA ratings from all the major international
rating agencies like Standards & Poor’s, Moody’s, Fitch and the Japanesecredit rating agency, JCR. Through this, the bank is essentially able tosupport African countries with very reasonable lending rates.
Since its inception in 1964, AfDB has supported African countries withover $100 billion of development assistance to African countries over theyears, but a lot more needs to be done for African countries to achieve theeconomic transformation that everyone wants African countries to have.
Developed countries like Japan reveal how much transformation lies ahead
for the African countries. Japan is an inspiration in terms of what needs
to be done.
People are optimistic that this will happen because of the fact that Africancountries are very well-endowed with resources and are resilient in termsof many of the economies. Additionally, an increasing number of African
leaders are committed to governance reforms and other reforms that will
improve the business climate significantly and engage in helping to target
private sector significantly.
Despite a very tough economic and global environment, African countriescontinue to push the resilient growth, and many of the well-performing
countries are non-oil, non-commodity-dependent economies.
The recent growth rates are as follows: Côte d’Ivoire has been growing
between 8% and 9%, Ethiopia around 8%, Tanzania 7.2%, and Senegal
6.7%. Rwanda and Kenya are around 6%. These countries are obviously
doing much better than the global average. Despite the difficulties being
faced by the African economies, the countries are quite resilient and thisresilience is due to macroeconomic stability, improved governance, risingdomestic demand and increasing regional trade.
In fact, Africa accounts for 30% of all global improvements in businessand in regulatory reforms in 2016. This is something that is frequently
overlooked.

The 2017 World Bank’s Doing Business Report shows that 34 out of 48
countries in the Sub-Saharan Africa had at least one business regulatory
reform in the previous year. When one looks at the report and therankings of African countries relative to some destinations that may beseen as attractive destinations, it is an eye opener to see that many
African countries are making their way up in the rankings and areincreasingly becoming attractive locations to do business.
To achieve the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030, a lot needs to bedone. The African Union has come up with Agenda 2063 which is very
well-aligned. The African Development Bank has come up with the HighFives strategies.
The private sector has a place and a role to play in essentially making
Africa attract resources against a backdrop where many advanced andemerging economies are experiencing low growth, negative interest rates,and long-term savings and pension funds suffering from depressed rates.
Indeed, the private sector contributes significantly to African’s growth. It
now accounts to over 80% of total production, two-thirds of the total
investment and three-quarters of the total credit to the economy. It also
provides jobs to about 90% of the employed working age population.
That may be impressive but a lot more needs to be done.
The High-Fives strategy, which includes Light-Up and Power Africa, FeedAfrica, Industrialize Africa, Integrate Africa and Improve the Quality of Lifeof the People of Africa.
A recent study by the UNDP showed that if properly implemented, theHigh Fives will achieve almost 90% of the agenda 2030, the Sustainable
Development Goals, and about the same for the African Union’s Agenda
2063.
When it comes to Light-Up and Power Africa, Africa’s energy potential isenormous; solar, wind, hydro, the list goes on. The goal to achieve
universal access in the Light-Up and Power Africa by 2025 is tostrategically look at crowding substantial amounts of money for theenergy sector.
The African Development Bank itself is looking to invest some 12 billion ofits own resources into the energy sector over the next 5 years. The AfDB
is also looking to crowd in and leverage an additional 45 to 50 billion into
the energy sector. The Japanese investors are well-placed and would bewell-advised to profit from this massive investment opportunity to light up
and power Africa.
In terms of Feed Africa, despite the fact that over 60% of the available
arable land is in Africa, it is still a net food importer which is a shame andhas to change.
To transform African agriculture into a globallycompetitive industry and create wealth and jobs, the African Development
Bank intends to invest on average $2.4 billion per year over the next 10years.

Although the amount of money is small relative to what is needed, how it
is used is important. AfDB acts as a catalyst to crowd in significantly
more into the agriculture sector, to help de-risk the sector andsignificantly increase agricultural production in Africa as well as foodsecurity related to that. AfDB is looking to attract over 56 billion over the10-year period of investment into agriculture alone.
One of the things AfDB is looking to launch very soon is the African
Savanna Initiative, much like the Cerrados in Brazil which JICA wasinstitutional in making it happen.
In terms of Industrialize Africa, industrialization plays an important role inthe development of Africa. A lot can be benefitted and learned from theexperience of Japan. Currently, African industry on average generates amere $700 of GDP per capita, less than a third in Latin America which isaround 2500 and barely a fifth of East Asia which is around 3400. This
must change to achieve a real transformation.
In this regard, the African Development Bank looks to support themanufacturing sector to the tune of 13.5 billion in annual approvals by
2025. To industrialize Africa, everything AfDB does is to help catalyze
crowd-in by substantially attracting core financiers, new investors,commercial banks and to facilitate cumulative investments of upwards of
50 billion over the next 10 years.
In terms of Integrate Africa, it is critically important that economies areessentially integrated, creating larger markets and in this regards, AfDB
looks to gain through some of the work that is being doing throughregional infrastructural projects and some of the payment systems toessentially put them all together.
These are the High Fives, which are improving the quality of life for Africa
which deals with the critical aspects of healthcare and humandevelopment.
Surprisingly, there has been no shortage of announcements relating toAfrica recently. People need to take note of the Compact with Africa, theMartial Plan, the TICAD and all the different announcements, which is fora good reason, because something interesting is happening.
AfDB’s Asia Representative Office in Tokyo stands ready to provide
additional information about the bank, the bank’s activities and shareprofitable investment opportunities.
Mr. Boamah concluded by saying that a better Africa is a better world andthat AfDB looks forward to working with all to make it happen.