Yaw Osafo Maafo
Senior Minister, Yaw Osafo Maafo, has called for a paradigm shift in Africa’s trading pattern with the rest of the world.
According to the Minister, it has become imperative for African nations to stop offering raw materials on the international front but undertake comprehensive processing of their tapped natural resources.
“I think it’s the efficient use of resources we must all pay attention to, the Senior Minister said at a roundtable discussion organized by the Centre for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana) on Tuesday in Accra.
The discussions, led by Professor Peter Lewis of the John Hopkins University, School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) in the USA, was held under the theme: Democracy and Development: Trends and Paths.”
According to Mr Osafo Maafo, Africa cannot control its development if we continue to use raw materials as the basis of development.
Most African economies in the post-independence era have remained colonial in outlook, mainly producing raw materials to feed industries in the western world. The end result has been little earnings from their trading activities with the outside world, as the lack of value-additions to their commodities does not allow for higher income generations on the global market.
There have been series of calls over the years by some African leaders for nations on the continent to ensure value addition for their tapped resources, but ironically it has been more of talk than action, as the continent continues to lose out hugely from international trade due to the non-processing of its trading products.
Mr. Osafo Maafo reiterated that owing to the development, Ghana and Cote d’ Ivoire for instance, continue to lose out on the $100 billion world cocoa industry, even though the two countries are the largest producers of cocoa globally, with both supplying 60 percent of cocoa on the international market.
According to him, domestic processing of commodities like cocoa needs to be taken seriously and a culture of consuming what is produced locally should be promoted across board.
He could not fathom why Ghana and Cote d’ Ivoire earned $2 billion and $3.7 billion respectively from cocoa trade on the world market in 2015 when the total amount earned that year from global cocoa sale was $100 billion.
About the event
The event sought to provoke discussions on the democratic and development path of African countries and the interlock between them.
Prof. Lewis, in his presentation, focused on the period when African nations gained independence, through to the political and economic liberalization phases in the 1990s to date.
By Melvin Tarlue