Building The African Economy

The tasks ahead of us are enormous and challenging. It will require the collective effort of the entire black race throughout the Diaspora to mitigate the socio-economic malaise confronting our people. We must begin with the most fundamental resource of any society, its people.

Generally speaking, it may be said that many of our people - both on the continent and in the entire Diaspora - are-under-nourished, in relatively poor health, and under-educated. Many of our people, especially the very young and aged are literally dying of starvation. Healthcare is either inaccessible or unaffordable.

As is often the case, the disease afflicting our people are usually preventable or totally curable, still, countless numbers of our children are either sick or dying. A vast number of our children, when they do survive, are growing up either completely uneducated or grossly under-educated. This is, of course, a totally unacceptable tragedy with dire consequences that reach far into our future.

We must face the fact that we will never be able to address the challenge of our present economic crisis, or any other aspect of Africa’s future, so long as our young people are disproportionately shackled by starvation, illness and ignorance.

But it follows then, that our most urgent priority must be the relief of human misery and the wholesome development of our people. Otherwise, it will be pointless discussing what we are going to do about the debt crisis or any other African problem, because all our potential and hope for the future will be reduced to an all consuming struggle for more subsistence and survival. This is the main reason, black organizations, successful black business mogul are really needed to contribute to the enhancement of the quality of life of your people here in Africa.

In spite of what you see and hear most about Africa, Africa is not poor. It may in fact be the richest of the world’s continents. We have, in addition to the Atlantic and the Indian Oceans, great rivers, fertile soil, vast marshes, and tropical rain forests whose wealth, as sources of food and medicine among other products, has already been touched. We have in our Earth what is probably the world’s greatest reserve of minerals, diamonds, gold and other precious metals. The phenomenon of the encroaching desert, which has caused hunger and great suffering in parts of our continent, could probably be more than off set by proper management the application of technology to both these and the under-productive fertile areas of the continent in the same way the deserts in Israel have been converted into productive agricultural farms.