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Africa Knows! It is time to decolonise minds

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Keynote speeche

Keynote will be in French, Q&A later on will be intermediated by Nouria Ouibrahim.

Dr Mustapha Mekideche
Former vice-president and founding member of the National Economic and Social Council (CNES) of Algeria.

How can we achieve an inclusive and sustainable development on the African continent which will result in a much-needed massive job creation, a significant poverty reduction, a social cohesion and ultimately peace? This required strategy will necessarily be based on the industrialization of Africa, which will allow it to transform its raw materials on the continent. This added value will bring more wealth, more jobs and will ultimately give Africans more confidence, which in turn will have a positive impact on the intra-African trade.

However, a major pre-requisite to this strategy of industrialization is access to and the mastery of knowledge and know-how. In this chapter, the Diaspora, which usually is motivated to help their countries of birth, can play a key role.

The concept of industrialization will be introduced in my presentation will include different aspects of our modern economy including manufacturing, food, mining industry but also the service industry such as telecommunication, e-commerce, banking and tourism. In summary, the goal of the proposed strategy is to achieve a sustainable, inclusive, robust and resilient economy. This economic growth will create local wealth and jobs and reduce poverty.

The presentation will examine the challenges faced by Africans to achieve the new growth regime leading to the emergence in Africa! As an illustration, the Algerian version of this new growth paradigm will be presented, a model that can be generalized to other countries on the continent. In conclusion, it is clear that the knowledge-based economy will be at the heart of this new paradigm for Algeria and for Africa.