With keynote addresses from former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan and Ghana’s President John Dramani Mahama, a group of delegates gathered for “Beyond Africa 2015,” the 15th International Economic Forum on Africa in Berlin, Germany, last month.
It was convened to discuss further the findings of the African Economic Outlook 2015, a publication that noted that, while Africa is a continent that has recently provided some of the most eye-catching success stories in international development, there is a more striking nuance beyond these impressive headline figures.
In a 2013 interview with the Africa Policy Journal, Ibrahim Assane Mayaki, CEO of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development Planning and Coordinating Agency, observed that “many Africans boast of having six of the fastest 10 growing economies in the world, but at the same time, what we don’t generally say is that we also have seven of the 10 most unequal economies. If we look at the Gini coefficients, Africa is the most unequal continent in the world today.”
About the author
Musa Okwonga
Musa Okwonga is a journalist, poet, broadcaster, musician, and PR consultant currently based in Berlin, Germany. He has written for several publications, including The Guardian, The New Statesman, ESPN and The New York Times, and is the author of two books on football, the first of which, A Cultured Left Foot, was nominated for the 2008 William Hill Sports Book of the Year. Find out more about his work at www.okwonga.com.
