But foreign investors are beginning to take notice of progress in Africa. Average net private capital flows, which were negative in 1990 and negligible in 1992, now average more than 2 percent of GDP, equivalent to 10 percent of total investment in Africa. This is important progress, but only a start. Global private investment has surpassed 340 billion dollars annually, but still only about one percent goes to Africa. Internal institutional and policy reforms are the keys to facilitating the transition to a trade and investment relationship for Africa with the world economy.
Clearly education is also a core issue at the center of Africa's development challenge.
From almost every study we have seen, the role of education in advancing a country's economic and political fortunes is tremendous. The World Bank found that investments in education for girls had the single highest rate of economic and social return for any development investment. Data shows that societies with literacy rates less than 70 percent simply do not grow and flourish. By the same token, when we look at the enormous progress that countries like South Korea made in the 1960s and 1970s, many of these advances are traced directly back to heavy investments in education and building human capacity. While sub-Saharan Africa has made great progress in education, enormous challenges remain.