By Kellen Owente
Why should you want to trade with a poor man? In this context, the question is about Africa. Why should the world settle for trading with a continent whose people have limited purchasing power when it could trade with a prosperous one? Why shouldn’t Africa be prosperous too? This is a question President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni often raises when discussing Africa’s place in the global economy.
I have had the chance to sit in some of the President’s meetings with investors, diplomats and international partners. One thing I have come to appreciate is how often his thinking goes beyond Uganda. He looks at the bigger picture ; an Africa that is prosperous enough to produce, trade and participate in the world economy.
By 1960, much of the world’s wealth was concentrated in North America, Western Europe, Australia, New Zealand and Japan while China, India and Africa had lower incomes. The transformation of China and India shows how the growing prosperity of large populations can create new markets and opportunities across the world.
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President Museveni has often used steel to illustrate this point. He has pointed out that steel which once sold at about $200 per tonne had risen to about $900 per tonne by 2008. He attributes that rise to expanding economies such as China, India and Brazil whose growing industries created greater demand for steel.
The point is that when people become wealthier, they consume more. Africa cannot keep exporting raw materials for a small share of the value.
President Museveni has stood on this, refusing to export raw coffee, minerals or petroleum without processing and calling it unacceptable to sell what God has given us unprocessed. We must process more, manufacture and create jobs at home.
Take coffee. Uganda earns about $2.4 billion from coffee annually yet we still export mostly green beans. The value from roasting, packaging and branding is still captured outside Africa while the entire African coffee producers receive less than $7 billion from a $465 billion global industry, according to the Inter-African Coffee Organization (IACO). Imagine if that value stayed in Africa.
For the farmer, value addition should not just be a slogan. It should mean better returns from the coffee grown in the garden. It means more jobs, more businesses and more income staying within our economy. The same thinking applies to milk, minerals and other products. It is also why initiatives such as the Parish Development Model matter in helping households move from subsistence to enterprise.
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This is where Pan-Africanism becomes practical. It is not only about our shared history or political unity. It is about economic integration and building a larger African market. Uganda cannot prosper in isolation while neighbouring countries remain poor. Our producers need markets across the continent and our people need the purchasing power to buy from one another.
Europe needs a prosperous Africa too. A continent with stronger industries and wealthier consumers would buy more European machinery, technology, medicine and services. Africa’s prosperity would expand opportunities for European businesses and workers just as it would for the rest of the world.
The President’s argument is not that Africa should prosper at the expense of others. It is that the world stands to gain when more of its people are prosperous. Africa should not be viewed only as a source of raw materials but as a continent of producers, manufacturers and consumers. A prosperous Africa is good for Africans and good for the world too.
The writer works with the Presidential Press Unit.
