Linking Investment, Security & Innovation for a Resilient Africa:

Challenges & Opportunities in Financing Resilience from within

Costantinos BT Costantinos, PhDProfessor of Public Policy, School of Graduate Studies, College of Business and Economics,

Chair EITCo & AAI Capital

Africa Investment ForumAfrican Union Conference Center,

April 8-10, 2014

Africa is Rising

Africa is Rising

Africa is Rising

Africa is Rising

Africa is Rising

Africa is Rising•Opportunities for IPSP• Africa is rising• Impressive GDP Growth• Progress in Innovation• Improved overall Peace and Security• Progress in respect for Constitutional

order• DRC alone has 24 trillion worth of mineral

deposits that can be legally tapped for resilience

• Potential for agricultural investments are vast and coming;• Indigenous bourgeoisie growing;

Challenges to Innovation & Private Sector Investment in Building Resilience

•Africa is being weaned from • Weak institutions, corruption,

impunity... • Lack of constitutionalized order;• Diminished role of the private sector, • Adjustments that kill business & social

expenditure;• Threats of force projection,

destabilization and crime that reduce resilience and breed social unrest associated;

• Illegal natural resource exploitation;• Ethnic, religious and regional

cleavages;

Africa has survived and thrived long before states, donors: What happened?

• Impact of the colonial and militaristic legacy;

• Failed Governing Institutions (Somalia, DRC...)

• The aid industry is the largest single account today, after finance and hence, the competing claims for the resources by national and international organizations;

• The biggest beneficiary is the private sector: banks, insurances....

Analytical challenges in Innovation and Private Sector Partnership (IPSP)

• A trend where nations are hooked to donors;

• A tendency to narrow IPSP to terms and categories of immediate, not very well considered, social action...;

• Inattention to problems of articulation of IPSP within local politics than as abstract possibilities;

• Ambiguity as to whether society is the agent or object of IPSP;

• a nearly exclusive concern in certain institutional perspectives with generic attributes of FDIs and consequent neglect of analysis in terms of their specific strategies and performances;

Questions that linger on...

• What are the concerns of Investors?• What is the rationale or significance

of the great traffic of FDIs, the proliferating activities that seem to show little regard for economy of coordination?

• How far and in what ways do various FDI mechanisms, forms of knowledge and technical assistance feed on one another in setting the boundaries of reform?

What are FDI’s Needs?

• Rules & Institutions• Policy Frameworks for

Innovation & Investment• Do African nations have

Investment Strategic plans• Economic Governance, Rule of

Law & Institutional arrangements

• Monitoring, Strategic Information Management

Paradigms of change:

Actions required to develop adequate

IPSP based resilience transformative agenda

• Using African resources: the AfDB building resilience to shocks and stresses

• Adaptive strategies of communities • The Sustainable Livelihoods

Approach• Burden sharing - host communities• Innovative disaster risk financing,

Local capacity development

The African Union @ 50...

• Challenges to Pan-African IPSP driven Resilience & Response?• Can the AU transcend from the

perception that it is an enclave of African elite as opposed to a organization of African citizens?

• How does the fact that the AU as a political institution dependent on non-African donors for peace and security affect citizen resilience?

• Hence, it is deflected from its operational & strategic concerns enshrined in The AU Constitutive Act and numerous declarations;

• This potentially stems from ideological confusion;

• Institutional incoherence;• lack of civic base• Predicated on the whims of its

membership that cripples • Professionalism, • Transparency, • Predictability and • Accountability

• This has resulted in neglect and even fear the building of strategic indigenous African institutions;

• Implementation deficit of Declarations, Agreements and Programs: • the AUC has too many stuff on its

plate to swallow. • This brings us to the roles of • The UN System in Africa:• UNECA, UNDP, UNICEF...

• The AfDB• NEPAD• Bilateral and multilaterals....

• What is their track record in promoting an investment climate

Africa needs plural set of political organizations,

which promote and protect a responsible and

prudent indigenous bourgeoisie and FDI...

Rules & institutions

Africa must engender a new breed of businesses that are

free of exploitation and corruption that can generate

financial and human resources:

The era of colonial type emergency interventionist

development is simply untenable

Vibrant indigenous bourgeoisie

Creating an economic society and legal empowerment of the poor

• Access to justice;• Property rights;• Labor rights• Entrepreneurial rightsMainstreaming Innovation & Investment in the vision and mission of African States &

Polities• Entry points: clearly defined and focused innovation & investment entry points in order to maintain the critical focus to make an impact.

• Frameworks: IPSP national policies or strategic frameworks should be the frame of reference located within existing structures.

• Advocacy: IPSP sensitization and capacity building place mainstreaming in a better position;

• Partnership: IPSP developing strategic partnerships based upon comparative advantage, cost effectiveness and collaboration.

• Domains: the IPSP internal domain and the external domain

Mainstreaming Innovation & Investment:

Vision and mission of African States & Polities

Conclusion...

• Social entrepreneurship: individuals with innovative solutions to society’s most pressing social problems – that are ambitious and persistent, tackling major social issues and offering new ideas for wide-scale change.“• Scaling up: How can the work that is being done

be scaled up to have an impact in a culturally appropriate and ethical manner?

• Innovation: Are we doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results? Or are we seeking ways of innovating and learning from other innovative practices?

• Sustainability: There is extensive discussion of the importance of sustainability. However in reality many projects are efforts may not be as sustainable as possible?

Thank youcosty@costantinos.net