The Africa Business Club at Harvard Business School chose the theme, “Africa Accelerates: Equipping a Vibrant Economy,” for its 16th Annual Africa Business Conference, scheduled to take place February 28 to March 2 at the school’s campus in Boston. Conference co-chairs Amaka Ogeah and Moses Esema say this theme reflects the need for Africa to move beyond commodities-led growth to focus on the development of its human capital. Only by equipping its human resources with the skills needed for a vibrant economy will the continent achieve inclusive growth, they contend.
“We propose that the necessary parts to move Africa’s young population forward will be education and training, sustainable job creation, and entrepreneurship on the continent,” Ogeah and Esema say in a joint statement.
A continent-wide commitment to human capital development—of the scope made by Singapore, one of the four Asian tigers—not only would be timely and necessary, it would be most welcome by the nearly 70 percent of Africa’s population that is below the age of 25.
Reports of Africa’s economic vibrancy, always measured in terms of gross domestic product, are old news. By now, Africa-watchers are used to hearing that Sub-Saharan Africa is expected to grow at a faster clip than Brazil and India and claim seven of the world’s 10 fastest growing economies by 2015. We’ve learned, too, that one-third of Africa’s countries currently are experiencing over 6 percent annual growth, and that countries have indeed begun to diversify away from traditional oil and raw agricultural commodities and minerals.
But Africa has the highest proportion of illiterate youth in the world, estimated at about 25 percent, according to the African Development Bank’s 2013 Economic Outlook. Estimates suggest that about 133 million young people, accounting for more than 50 percent of the continent’s youth population, lack formal education.
There still is only one doctor for every 2,000 people at least (the number goes as high as 5,000) on the continent, as locally trained physicians head overseas after serving just two years or so at home. Research by Akhenaten Tankwanchi, a Ph.D. student at Vanderbilt University’s Peabody College of Education and Human Development in Tennessee, found that migration to the United States among physicians educated in Sub-Sahara Africa jumped 40 percent overall in the 2000s from the previous decades.
And, despite vibrant GDP growth and an exploding middle class that’s already bigger than India’s, only eight percent of Africans earn $10,000 or more a year, with 82 percent earning less than $3,600.
Harvard Business Review’s article, “Seven Reasons Why Africa’s Time Is Now” (October 2013), lauds the fact that 20 percent of government spending now goes to education, versus 13 percent in the United States.
Who can say whether that 20 percent can, or will, be sustained, or whether it is enough to invest in a workforce that will be bigger than China’s by 2035?
For years, Singapore has allocated about 20 percent of its national budget to education spending. The dividend from this sustained commitment to upgrading human capital through investments in education and vocational training is an advanced, high-income economy, renowned as a world-leading financial center. It boasts one of the world’s top education systems, having designed it “to groom a bright and literate population armed with skills and talents that are relevant to growing Singapore’s economy and ensuring its survival.”
“People are our core resource and education is our most important investment in insuring that our national capacity continues to grow,” says S. Iswaran, second minister of home affairs and second minister of trade and industry in Singapore.
At the close of the May 2013 World Economic Forum on Africa, held in South Africa, business leaders from across the continent called for investment in human capital and economic diversification to make growth across the continent more inclusive.
A few days later, at the 48th Annual Meetings of the African Development Bank in Morocco, the panel titled “One Billion Opportunities: Transforming the Human Capital Setting for Inclusive Growth” concluded that sustainable development in Africa is not possible without factoring in large segments of the population and ensuring that training and capacity building efforts match the real needs on the ground.
And in a few weeks, panelists at Harvard’s 2014 Africa Business Conference will tackle such human capital issues as investment in science and technology education, global accreditation for tertiary education, vocational training, empowering African women into leadership, empowering healthcare workers, finding and funding future CEOs, sourcing middle management talent on the ground, and entrepreneurship.
From business leaders and bankers to thought leaders and students, the appeal is the same: If Africa’s time truly is to be “now,” its investment in human capital is nothing short of urgent.
