President Yoweri Museveni has revealed that Africa needs to overcome ten main bottlenecks of infrastructure development such as roads, railway and electricity, human resource development, market integration to lower costs of doing business and attract investments.
Museveni was speaking during a breakfast round-table meeting organized by the Africa Strategy Group comprising of politicians, academicians, business moguls held under the theme ‘Shaping Africa’s agenda in the Global Context’ at the Hotel Grischa Monta in Davos, Switzerland
“The continent also needs to deal with the issue of economic and political integration for credible bargaining units in addition to an educated human resource. Africa is rising partly because currents governments not being hostile to the private sector.” he said.
“Part of our lagging behind was the attitude governments had against the private sector now that has changed, people are excited about artificial intelligence are those who already have developed infrastructure and a developed human resource,”
Giving an example of artificial intelligence where electronics replace the brain, Museveni said the brain commands the centre of the body and artificial intelligence without infrastructure development such as railway, electricity cannot be useful.
“Congo alone has a lot of electronic goods but if they can’t produce goods or services how can that help.” He said
The round-table was moderated by the Executive Director of OXFAM Winnie Byanyima who said governments should be accountable to their people, prioritise public services, and economic sectors, new technologies and tax systems that bring the maximum benefit to society as a whole.
It was attended by Rwanda President Paul Kagame, the outgoing AU Chair, South Africa’s Cyril Ramaphosa, Tunisia’s President Beji Caid Essebsi, former Prime minister of the United Kingdom Tony Blair among other leaders.
In the photo: Executive Director of the World Food Programme, Mr David Beasley and M7