Why Africa is Underdeveloped

Fri, Jun 21, 2013
By publisher
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Books

Kingsley Moghalu, deputy governor Central Bank of Nigeria, outlines factors that have held down Africa development in his new book

By Maureen Chigbo   |  Jul. 1, 2013 @ 01:00 GMT

A NEW book: Emerging Africa: How the Global Economy’s ‘Last Frontier’ Can Prosper and Matter, has provided an insightful perspective towards a better understanding of what has held the African continent down. The book also dwelt on how the continent can matter in the world through economic transformation. The book written by Kingsley Moghalu, deputy governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, was recently published by Bookcraft.

Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala
Okonjo-Iweala

The 399-page book was written against the backdrop of a deluge of newspaper and magazine articles about the rise of Africa, and the attendant new scramble for playing space on it. Moghalu, an African policy-maker and academic, through his book, cast a keen, searching eye on the continent, cutting swiftly through buzz and hype and sentiments to deliver a weighty, forward-looking and realistic assessment.

From globalisation to foreign aid and investment to China to the knowledge economy, and world trade, nothing escapes Moghalu’s insightful critique. In his words: “Emerging Africa sets out to question the prevailing conventional wisdom about Africa and its economic growth prospects, and goes beneath the surface of both afro-optimism and afro-pessimism to decode and address what really has held Africa down and how the continent can prosper and matter in the world through far-reaching economic transformation.”

Commenting on the book, Paul Collier, professor of economics, Oxford University, said: “Africans seriously analysing Africa’s opportunities are all too rare. Kingsley Moghalu writes with insight and authority. Emerging Africa deserves a wide audience.”

“Moghalu brings a remarkable intellect and his vast experience to this tour de force on Africa’s economic transformation,” said Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Nigeria’s coordinating minister of the economy and minister of finance.

Lamido Sanusi
Sanusi

According to Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, governor, Central Bank of Nigeria: “Emerging Africa offers a profound perspective on how African countries can achieve true prosperity.”

“Insightful and analytical, Kingsley Moghalu’s book, Emerging Africa, sheds instructive light on Africa’s position in the world,.” Says Shashi Tharoor, former UN Under-Secretary General and author of Pax Indica: India & the World of the 21st Century. “Kingsley Moghalu approaches Africa as the ‘last frontier’ with the perspective of a savvy Sherriff,”  Lord Mark Malloch-Brown, former minister of state for Africa, Asia and the UN, United Kingdom Foreign Office.

Before Moghalu joined the CBN, he was the founder and chief executive officer, CEO, of Sogato Strategies S.A., a global strategy and risk management firm in Geneva, Switzerland. He spent 17 years working for the United Nations, at duty stations in New York, Cambodia, Croatia, Tanzania and Switzerland.

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