Brookings Meekly Explores Africa’s 2014 Priorities with an Eminent Panel on #ForesightAfrica

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Africa in 2014, African Development, Bright Simons, Brookings Institution, Central Africa, Congo, George Clooney, IT in Africa, John McArthur, John Prendergast, Makhtar Diop, Robin Sanders, Senegal, World Bank

From L to R: McArthur, Diop, Sanders, Simons, Prendergast, and Sy (who is cut off)

Yesterday, I ventured down the street to the Brookings Institution for my first policy event of the year, ‘Top Priorities for Africa in 2014.’  The panelists (of which there was a large number) were quite impressive: Former US Ambassador to Nigeria and the Congo, Robin Sanders, Co-Founder of the Enough Project, John Prendergast, Bright Simons, President of a technology start-up in Ghana, Makhtar Diop, VP for Africa at the World Bank, and Amadou Sy, a Senegalese resident at Brookings.  John McArthur did an able job filling in for the flu-stricken Helene Cooper as moderator.

While it was good to get back in the swing of things and hear from the prominent speakers, the broad nature of the topic, the large number of panelists, and the limited time available led to a lot of broad generalizations and generic prescriptions for the continent’s development.  As I’ve said at similar events before, I’m sure that most of those in the audience would have been qualified to make the same remarks.

Antoinette Sayeh, IMF Africa Head at SAIS: ‘The Region is Catching Up’

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African agriculture, African governance, Antoinette Sayeh, Burkina Faso, Deborah Brautigam, IMF, Infrastructure in Africa, Liberia, SAIS, Shanta Devarajan, Uganda, World Bank

The last time I heard the head of the Africa division of a global financial institution speak on Massachusetts Avenue (Shanta Devarajan of the World Bank at Brookings), I was thoroughly displeased.  Yesterday, I heard Antoinette Sayeh, former Finance Minister of Liberia and currently the Director of the Africa Department at the IMF speak on “Drivers of Growth in Middle and Low-income sub-Saharan Africa.”  Although one can almost always find a bone to pick (keep reading for what it was this time), on the whole, I found her macro-economically focused remarks to hit most of the notes I would like to hear.

The World Bank and the Ambassador of South Africa on Sports and Development in Africa’s Great Lakes Region

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African soccer, Ebrahim Rasool, Great Lakes Africa, Sarah Farhat, South Africa Ambassador to US, Sports and Development, World Bank

Yesterday I attended the World Bank’s Africa Film Series’ screening of ‘Scoring for Peace’.  It was followed by a panel discussion featuring the filmmaker Sarah Farhat, South Africa’s Ambassador, Ebrahim Rasool, and some gentleman who worked at the Bank whose name I did not catch (another engaging World Bank staffer moderated).  I arrived late and had a very short time to consume the impressive spread of cheeses, deli meats, and beer that the Bank had laid out.  It was my first time inside the bank and I was quite taken back by both the refreshments and high level of security.

Boredom as Brookings Examines the Future of the African Union

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Africa Growth Initiative, African integration, Alan Spence, Amina Salum Ali, AU Ambassador to the US, bored DC interns, Brookings Institution, Marcelo Giugale, World Bank, World Bank Congo egg study

Yesterday I (and presumably the other attendees as well) suffered through a rather pedantic set of platitudes as the Ambassador of the African Union to the US, Amina Salum Ali, a high ranking World Bank staffer, Marcelo Giugale, and a media professional, Alan Spence expounded  in the most generic ways possible (for the most part) about African development, or ‘The Next 50 years of the African Union‘, as the event was billed (there was another scheduled panelist who did not show and no explanation was provided).  In the defense of the speakers, I suppose that a vague topic results in vague observations.