Paul Collier the author of the dropped a few on the Marketplace radio program. He singled out Nigeria while making his point. He was concerned about the possibility of squandering the wealth generated from rising commodity prices. I mentioned this same possibility in the entry; Lessons from Juba. Listen to the segment .
Labels:podcast
Here is a comment by Seyoyo on the previous blog post, Seyoyo's comment on Africa: Investment Horizons (Podcast). Seyoyo's comment ring true and rather summarizes the podcast. For those who have not been able to listen to this 50 minutes podcast, please read the comment below.
Listening to the pod it's obvious it's only Pineau who gets it. The other two are still stuck in their frameworks. On one hand, there's the ex-IMF guy saying all the tosh they usually dish, and on the other hand there's the US Ambassador stuck in the USAID framework.
Pineau really gets it. Africa gets far less investment than it should and her Botswana example is perfect. The response of the ex IMF guy was daft, saying there's nothing in Botswana to develop.
How daft can some smart people be? What natural resources are there in Switzerland or Japan. The point is that people need food, drugs, leisure, transportation etc, and the supply of these goods is where the opportunities are.
The problem is that it's still convenient to think of Africa as somewhere to take natural resources from.
Labels:Africa,development,podcast
Carol (Africa Open for Business, 2005) talks about her forthcoming film, Investment Horizon (2008) on NPR's idea stream. This podcast is worth your time, trust me. In this podcast she talks about the difference between the perception of risk about investment in Africa and the 'real' risk in investment in Africa. She also0 touches on the 'Africa's Image' problem.
Labels:Africa,investment,podcast
