The Sunday Mail
Kuda Bwititi Chief Reporter —
African and Arab states stand on the cusp of changing the face of the global economy — if current efforts by the two regions to work together are fully pursued.
The Fourth Africa-Arab Summit held in Equatorial Guinea last week was a significant convention that discussed the huge potential the regions have to shape the global economy and test the West’s global dominance.
Significantly, major deliberations focused on how the partners could deepen cooperation while leveraging on each other’s strengths. Africa is blessed with vast natural resources.
The continent has productive land, renewable resources such as water, forestry, and fisheries, and non-renewable resources (minerals, coal, gas, and oil).
On the other hand, the Arab nations are also generously endowed with natural resources, particularly oil. They have been able to turn their wealth into economic transformation.
Africa, on the other hand, has 12 percent of the globe’s oil reserves and 42 percent of its gold deposits, as well as a host of other minerals, yet the continent remains underdeveloped.
There is a growing realisation that this gap between the developed and underdeveloped world can only be closed through strategic partnerships such as the Africa-Arab pact.
The Summit focused on creating an Africa-Arab Common Market with massive economic spin-offs. Discussions also centred on the need to increase trade and investment between the two regions and to support existing industrial development initiatives to reduce poverty.
Kuwait, an Arab world giant, remains one of the richest countries, not only because of its rich oil deposits, but also because of massive developments in science and technology. This could be beneficial to Africa.
At the Summit, President Mugabe said it is time to challenge countries in the North, which continue to milk the South of its raw materials for their own industrialisation agenda.
“The unbalanced North/South cooperation, an extension of the colonial system, has demonstrated repeated failures, especially for less-privileged countries of the South.
“They have simply tagged along, and only ‘developed’ along the dictates of the wealthy Northerners. For the countries of the South, the economic pattern has been the continuous export of primary products and raw materials to feed the insatiable industrial needs of the Northerners.”
The Summit also reaffirmed the imperative of reforming the United Nations and its Security Council under the Ezulwini Consensus and its equivalent in the League of Arab States.
The two regions also resolved to hold meetings in the next six months to come up with a funding mechanism for cooperation. At the last Africa-Arab Summit in 2013, Kuwait unveiled US$3 billion for the three-year period ending December 2016.
Under the proposed funding framework, other Arab nations are likely to commit to channelling more resources towards Africa’s development. Both regions resolved to collaborate against terrorism, conflict, youth unemployment and food security.
Three main declarations were adopted:
◆ The Malabo Declaration which sets out areas of future cooperation, taking into account successes and challenges.
◆ The Declaration for Support to the State of Palestine.
◆ The Africa-Arab Co-operation Action Plan (2017-2021).
The Summit was attended by leaders that included President Mugabe, host President Teodore Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, His Highness Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah Amir of the State of Kuwait; Presidents Muhammadou Buhari (Nigeria), Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz (Islamic Republics of Mauritania), Idriss Déby Itno (Chad), Edgar Lungu (Zambia) and Omar Al Bashir (Sudan); Secretary General of the League of Arab States Ahmed Aboul Gheit and the Africa Union Commission Chairperson Dr Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma.
