Nompumelelo Magwaza

Trevor Manuel, the Minister for Planning, has urged global investors to empower Africa as the continent has the potential to become the next economic boom region given the availability of natural resources to produce renewable energy.

Manuel was addressing the UN Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI) board members, who represent total assets under management in excess of $30 trillion (R240 trillion), at a dinner dialogue hosted by the Government Employees Pension Fund (GEPF) in Durban at the weekend.

“Africa is the continent of hope,” he said. “It has a great potential to create investments through agriculture, hydroelectric power and solar energy. The only thing that is missing is the key to unlock this.”

Manuel said studies had shown that Africa still had about 60 percent of the world’s untapped agricultural land, which could ease the scourge of food insecurity globally.

“The amount of untapped land in Africa can come in handy for the ongoing global food security anxiety.” Talks must be held about improving farming technologies, such as irrigation, and building roads to access that land.

He said Africa was still a dark continent in terms of access to electricity, with only a few benefiting from it, yet projects such as the Inga dam and hydropower plant in the Democratic Republic of Congo had failed to proceed beyond the drawing board for years.

“The Inga Dam has potential to provide the whole of Africa with power. The river is always in full flow and it is never known to dry (up).”

Manuel told investors that only a third of Africa’s roads were paved. This, together with an antiquated railway system, made transportation of goods into inland areas a nightmare.

He said the boom in cellular telecommunications had proved to the world that enormous economic gains could be made in Africa, noting that new cellphone subscribers were signing up every day.

Responding to the minister’s plea, the chairman of the UN PRI, Wolfgang Engshuber, said as global investors the signatories were impressed with the leadership shown by the South African government.

The PRI said issues of investing in Africa would be given consideration in its advisory council and board meetings running in parallel to the COP17 climate talks.

“We are very happy that African governments have shown transparency and we are aware of and encouraged by the talks around the number of opportunities for growth in Africa.”

Local investors such as the GEPF said environmental, social and governance programmes would help establish possible green investments.

Manuel said the biggest problem was that the world did not want to deal with tough issues and that part of the reason the world faced with financial uncertainty was because of global imbalances.

Asked where Africa should expect flows to come from, he said investments from Asia, particularly China, proved to be the most accountable across the globe.

Manuel said stumbling blocks at the climate change conference revolved around the issue of who would finance clean energy programmes.

“We hope that country ministers coming down to Durban this week as part of negotiations will crack the problem and set down a feasible plan to raise funds.”