U.S.-Africa Infrastructure Conference builds on entrepreneurship summit
By Charles W. Corey
Washington, DC Thursday April 29, 2010 - Just minutes after U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton officially closed the Presidential Summit on Entrepreneurship ( http://www.america.gov/entrepreneurship_summit.html ), the fourth annual U.S.-Africa Infrastructure Conference opened nearby on April 27.
Many of the 25 African entrepreneurs from 10 African countries who attended the entrepreneurship summit stayed on to attend the infrastructure conference sponsored by the Corporate Council on Africa (CCA).
At the opening reception, CCA President and Chief Executive Officer Stephen Hayes told America.gov that infrastructure is Africa's biggest need, and that entrepreneurs are "absolutely vital" to Africa's economic development and growth. "I think the entrepreneurship summit was something that was badly needed in terms of the emphasis it puts on entrepreneurs - there is probably not another thing more needed in Africa."
Mima S. Nedelcovych, managing director of professional services company Schaffer Global Group and a former U.S. representative to the African Development Bank, agreed, telling America.gov that entrepreneurs are "absolutely critical" to business.
Nedelcovych, who has worked much of his career in the U.S.-Africa business environment, called entrepreneurs "the people who make things happen."
"Today," he said, "you have the second- and third-generation children of traders who made money in transactions and who are now schooled, saying 'We really need to move things into proper business and industry'" formats.
Entrepreneurs need the right conditions - and predictable conditions - to flourish, he said. "If you only know the rules of the game are going to be good for a year or two, of course you are only going to do transactions and trading. You are not going to take a seven-year or 10-year loan to put up a factory. You have got to know that you have a steady environment that won't disappear on you." Entrepreneurs need assurances that their investments will be protected well into the future, he said.
Anthony Carroll, managing director of the Washington-based international business advisory company Manchester Trade Ltd., said Africa needs more mid-level entrepreneurs.
"I think where Africa has been constrained over the years is the missing middle of entrepreneurship. Those companies are made up of entrepreneurs who are above the microenterprise level but below the large level. Historically, in our economy and in other developed economies, the real engines for growth are those middle levels. ... Those are the people we really want to reach out to. Those are the people who are going to be the engines of their economies" because they can create jobs and wealth, move economies forward, and be champions of good governance and transparency.
Kevin R. Boyd, director of the Africa program at the U.S. Department of Commerce, said President Obama's entrepreneurship summit was critical because "while you can have governments creating the groundwork for entrepreneurship and economic growth, the key to it is to have the private sector doing things."
When you look at job numbers, he said, it is often entrepreneurs who actually create jobs and stimulate economic growth across the continent.
Sola Adegbola, group managing director H.S. Petroleum Ltd. of Nigeria, said the entrepreneurship summit was an opportunity for American and African businesses and entrepreneurs to network - to see what opportunities are available. Africa, he said, is a "virgin economy" not only for foreign investors but for African entrepreneurs as well.
Entrepreneurs "are everything in Africa," he said, because apart from entrepreneurs and businesses in Africa, all you have is governments. The rise of a new middle class is essential for Africa's continued entrepreneur-sparked growth and development, he added.
One of the 25 African entrepreneurs who participated in the summit and attended the reception was Papa Yusupha Njie ( http://www.america.gov/st/business-english/2010/April/20100402184605cpataruk0.9688837.html ), chief executive officer of information and communications technology company Unique Solutions in The Gambia. Njie said the summit provided an opportunity for him to reconnect with banking colleagues he had known in the past, and that he expected to remain in touch and do business with them.
Unique Solutions is a wireless Internet provider developing a network for banks in Gambia. "Right now, we are building a platform for the central bank to allow real-time settlement and also partnering" with Nigeria to allow electronic payments in our part of the world, point of sales and [automated teller machine] cards."
"I have always said entrepreneurship is not a destination; it is a journey. Coming to this summit has allowed me the chance to meet others on a similar journey," he said.
Source: U.S. Department of State.
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