"If done well, resource-intensive agri-investments can generate new and higher paying jobs, upgrade the skills of the labour force, facilitate technology transfer, open new and better markets, and generate complementary infrastructure.”
Principles for Responsible Agricultural Investment that respects Rights, Livelihoods and Resources, World Bank Group, 25 January 2010
“Africa will be the economic lion of the 21st century.”
McKinsey: Lions on the Move: The Progress and Potential of African Economies
“South–South cooperation can contribute to the enhancement of Africa’s capacity to deal with development and economic challenges and emerging threats.”
Economic Development in Africa Report 2010 - United Nations Conference on Trade and Development
“Poverty, we are told, is mainly rooted in agriculture, and the productivity of that sector must be increased.”
UNCTAD Economic Development in Africa – 2011
“About half of all trade facilitation reforms in 2009/10 took place in Sub-Saharan Africa.”
Doing Business 2011 – International Finance Corporation
In the long term, Africa's best chance for prosperity and stability is not from dependency on foreign aid, but from sustained private investment and enterprise.
Currently, only about 1% of the private capital in the world is invested in sub-Saharan Africa.
“The continent [Africa] is now growing much more rapidly than the OECD nations. It [Africa] may well be on the cusp of a reversal of fortunes.”
McKinsey: The Case for Investing in Africa
Africa’s GDP has been rising steadily, at around 5 percent a year, for the past decade, reaching $1.6 trillion in 2008. In 2009, Africa was one of just two regions (the other was Asia) where GDP rose.
McKinsey
“The truth of the matter is that when you look at risk-adjusted returns on this continent [Africa], they are significantly better than in most parts of the world over the last decade.”
Maria Ramos – Absa Bank Limited Group Chief Executive
“... the idea of using profit-seeking investment to generate social and environmental good is moving from a periphery of activist investors to the core of mainstream financial institutions.”
