Prosperity and Growth in Africa Will Come From Shifts in Economy, Access to Healthcare and Education, TIME100 Summit Africa Panelists Say

Fostering growth in Africa requires a “paradigm shift,” panelists at the TIME100 Summit Africa said during a conversation titled “Pathways to Urban Prosperity” on Friday in Kigali, Rwanda.

Speaking with TIME’s Chief Marketing Officer Sadé Muhammad, Bogolo Kenewendo, the regionalisation director and special advisor to the U.N.; Kennedy Odede, the founder and CEO of Shining Hope for Communities; and Hanan Morsy, the chief economist at the U.N. Economic Commission for Africa reflected on their experiences in government and non-profit sectors during the session, which followed a moving poetry performance by the Sudanese poet and activist Emi Mahmoud, who is also a UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador.

There was unanimous agreement among the panelists on one thing: the path to growth lies in investing in Africa and building urban promise as a way to uplift the soon-to-be largest workforce in the world.

“We need to have a paradigm shift of what we’ve seen before,” said Morsy, who led macroeconomic policy and research at the African Development Bank between 2018 and 2021. “We need to have a more inclusive future for the youth by moving into higher value chain producing rather than just exporting raw materials. We need to lead the way by being forward looking: We have huge assets, the largest working age population, and also huge solar potential, huge reserves of green minerals that we can use to build value chains.”

People in the region need to have “livelihoods that are not solely dependent on the government, but are able to realize their potential,” said Kenewendo, whose career spans trade & investment, finance & development, and public policy as the former Minister of Investment, Trade and Industry in Botswana. She said that building the economy and providing access to jobs and healthcare was necessary to “harness the demographic dividend in the continent.”

“We have to ask ourselves several questions like: are we training the youthful population into a strong labor workforce?’” she added.

Odede, one of Africa’s best-known community organizers and social entrepreneurs, drew on his personal experience. “I grew up in a slum, There was no place to go when it rained. That was my life,” he said. “We know the solution: strong leadership, and a government where the leaders are selfless.’’

Odede founded and now leads Shining Hope for Communities, one of Kenya’s largest grassroots movements that has impacted over 2.4 million slum dwellers across 50 sites, development comes from uplifting communities on the ground. He highlighted the need to have systems in place that are focussed on solving the issues of the locals, “To fight poverty, the biggest thing to do is to understand social context. Listen and find out what are the people’s challenges,” he said.

For the first time ever, TIME has brought its iconic TIME100 franchise to Africa, bringing together international and regional leaders, influencers and visionaries alongside members of the African TIME100 community to a daytime summit to discuss the solutions needed to build a better future and to celebrate their accomplishments at a gala in Kigali.

The TIME100 Summit Africa is sponsored by Visit Rwanda, Kigali International Financial Centre, and RwandAir

Write to Astha Rajvanshi at astha.rajvanshi@time.com.