Get on board or be left behind, Okonjo-Iweala tells Nigeria, others

The new Director-General of the World Trade Organization, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, has said Nigeria and other African countries should embrace the digital economy or be left behind.

The former Nigerian minister of finance said this on Tuesday while speaking virtually at Ehingbeti: Lagos Economic Summit 2021.

She said, “One of the most important things a successful Africa should look at is the demographics of Africa. When you have 60 percent of your population being 30 years old and younger, then you have to worry about job creation.

“So for me, a successful Africa is an Africa that is able to create jobs for its citizen. And when I say jobs, I mean descent work as I said in my WTO acceptance speech yesterday – that is the biggest issue that the continent has to face, and similarly Lagos State.”

She said youth unemployment would lead to so many social dislocations and unrest.

Okonjo-Iweala said Nigeria and Africa should concentrate on how to create modern decent jobs for young people, adding, “We have great opportunities to do that.”

She said, “I think one of the things that is very difficult for the continent, for Nigeria, and for Lagos State now is the fact that we are still mainly a raw materials-based kind of economy. I know Lagos is a manufacturing hub, but if you look at the whole of Africa, we are still mainly exporting primary products.

“So, we have to get from a position where we are exporting raw materials to one where we are adding more value and processing. For Lagos, Nigeria and the continent, we have to ask ourselves the big question: how do we industrialise Africa? And the Agenda 2063 of the African Union looks very much at how we can get there.”

According to the WTO boss, Africa imports more than 90 percent of the pharmaceutical products being used on the continent.

“So, that is a big gap, and there is an opportunity for us to manufacture those products. We have a market of 1.3 billion people, equivalent to China’s or India’s,” she said,

She said with the African Continental Free Trade Agreement now under implementation, Nigeria and Lagos should look at how they could take advantage of such a big market to make Nigeria not just a consumer centre where other people send goods, but a big manufacturing centre that sends goods to other countries.

Stressing the need to create jobs for young people, Okonjo-Iweala said, “But the future is changing and is very dynamic. So, the future is artificial intelligence; it is the digital economy. It is here to stay and we can do anything about that. So, either Nigeria, Lagos State, Africa gets on board or we get left behind.”