Africa Development Quotes & Sayings

Entrepreneurship is the cornerstone to African development and the key to local value creation in Africa. I am determined to ensure that Africa's next generation of entrepreneurs have the platform they need to turn their entrepreneurial aspirations into sustainable businesses that will drive economic growth and job creation across Africa, — Tony Elumelu

This is my first visit to Africa, a region where President Bush has voiced a deep passion for fostering and encouraging economic development, investment and trade. — Donald Evans

Unity will not make us rich, but it can make it difficult for Africa and the African peoples to be disregarded and humiliated. And it will, therefore, increase the effectiveness of the decisions we make and try to implement for our development. My generation led Africa to political freedom. The current generation of leaders and peoples of Africa must pick up the flickering torch of African freedom, refuel it with their enthusiasm and determination, and carry it forward. — Julius Nyerere

In the industrial nations, there's a sense that Africa would go under without development aid. But believe me, Africa existed before you Europeans came along. And we didn't do all that poorly either. — James Shikwati

Yes, many years of oppression may have complicated things and it seems impossible for blacks to create their own means of production. But, I truly believe that we must start somewhere. We must reimagine a world where we are proudly black and support all things black in order to reinvent the economic wheel. We talk. We produce theories. We prove ourselves and and and... But we must also put our money where our mouths and theories are. This is why we fight each and every single day. — Malebo Sephodi

Everybody must be given the opportunity for self liberation and development. — Lailah Gifty Akita

Don't under-rate the scope of your influence in your youth. Don't think you have all the time to make a difference in this world. Recognize that both brown and green leaves fall to the ground. — Nana Awere Damoah

It is only by our hands that we can build this continent to the standard that we envy and admire in the advanced countries. — Nana Awere Damoah

The development of Africa will not happen without the effective participation of women. Our forefathers' image of women must be buried once for all. — Ousmane Sembene

Any person or nation can successfully duplicate any achievement that a person or nation succeeded in attaining. I am sure that Africa and other economically backward countries, that are sometimes referred to as third world countries, can attain a very high rate of development much faster than the time it took Europe and other first world countries. — Sunday Adelaja

My solutions are to include Africa in the global economy, and not African charity, AIDS research, but African infrastructure development. And I think that Africa can import and needs everything the whole world can manufacture. And they have got enough money to pay for it. It's just that the money is in the ground. — Andrew Young

Even though it is the case that poverty is linked to AIDS, in the sense that Africa is poor and they have a lot of AIDS, it's not necessarily the case that improving poverty - at least in the short run, that improving exports and improving development - it's not necessarily the case that that's going to lead to a decline in HIV prevalence. — Emily Oster

I have always thought that the rapid economic development of South Africa would in the long run prove to be incompatible with the government's racial policies, and recent events have tended to confirm my opinion. — Harry Oppenheimer

A stable and prosperous DRC is the victory of the World. Congo is a deciding factor for Africa's development whether we like it or not. — Ahmed Padia Binkatabana

We are enjoying in Africa what I call the democracy dividend. The progress we are seeing, economic development are all part of the dividend of good governance, respect for human rights, rule of law. It has created an enabling environment that allows not only foreigners to come in and invest but for Ghanaians to invest. It has created an atmosphere for our young people to be creative, innovative — John Dramani Mahama

We cannot blame other people for our troubles. We are not victims of the influx of foreign people into South Africa. We must remember that it was mainly due to the aggressive and hostile policies of the apartheid regime that the economic development of our neighbours was undermined. — Nelson Mandela

Africa's mineral wealth is great; we should co-operate in its development. — Haile Selassie

The general disinclination of Spain to accept slaves from Islamicized regions of Africa during the formative years of Hispano-American society had enormous consequences for the development of music in the New World. — Ned Sublette

To overcome the tremendous obstacles in the way of the economic unification of Africa, decisive political actions are required in the first place. Political unification is a prerequisite. The rational organization of African economies cannot precede the political organization of Africa. The elaboration of a rational formula of economic organization must come after the creation of a federal political entity. It is only within the framework of such a geo-political entity that a rational economic development and cooperation can be inserted. The inverse leads to the type of results we have witnessed over the years. — Cheikh Anta Diop

The countries that have collected the most development aid are also the ones that are in the worst shape. Despite the billions that have poured in to Africa, the continent remains poor. — James Shikwati

One of the biggest development issues in the world is the education of girls. In the United States and Europe, it has been accepted, but not in Africa and the developing countries. — Harri Holkeri

There's good news out of Africa. Not all of Africa. But from a large part of Africa that quietly, with little fanfare, is on the move. ('Emerging Africa', 2010) — Steven Radelet

Europe and Africa share proximity and history, ideas and ideals, trade and technology. You are tied together by the ebb and flow of people. Migration presents policy challenges - but also represents an opportunity to enhance human development, promote decent work, and strengthen collaboration. — Ban Ki-moon

Development means a capacity for self-sustaining growth. It means that an economy must register advances which in turn will promote further progress. The loss of industry and skill in Africa was extremely small, if we measure it from the viewpoint of modern scientific achievements or even by the standards of England in the late eighteenth century. However, it must be borne in mind that to be held back at one stage means that it is impossible to go on to a further stage. When a person is forced to leave school after only two years of primary school education, it is no reflection on him that he is academically and intellectually less developed than someone who had the opportunity to be schooled right through to university level. What Africa experienced in the early centuries of trade was precisely a loss of development opportunity, and this is of greatest importance. Pg. 105 — Walter Rodney

Africa is going through its own historical process of state formation just as Europe and America did. It is just happening much later than other continents because of the interruption of Africa's own historical development by the colonization of Africa by Europe. — John Prendergast

I am on my way to Ghana tomorrow morning and you just need to know that this Administration is very focused on doing all we can to promote economic development in this part of the world, in Africa, throughout Africa, North Africa and sub-Saharan Africa. — Donald Evans

That the AIDS pandemic is threatening sustainable development in Africa only reinforces the reality that health is at the center of sustainable development. — Gro Harlem Brundtland

We have to move the meter in sports in Africa, especially basketball. With the growth of the NBA globally, we have to figure out more ways to develop facilities, coaching, leagues, and youth development in Africa. The talent is incredible. Especially physically. How do we get the youth to start playing at an early age just like in soccer? The future is bright. We now have an NBA office in Africa, we have legends and Hall of Famers, we have African assistant coaches, front office members, and some prominent African players over the last 10 years. So we must plan well for the next 10. — Masai Ujiri

We can be hindered in our development and our personal growth by political conditions. Outer circumstances can constrain us. Only when we are free to develop our innate abilities can we live as free beings. But we are just as much determined by inner potential and outer opportunities as the Stone Age boy on the Rhine, the lion in Africa, or the apple tree in the garden. — Jostein Gaarder

Young men and women are causing wealth loss to their generation because they are sitting on inert ideas, bottled-up potential energy and scratching the ground when they should be gliding the skies and perambulating with the stars. These people are so disillusioned they live life without any urgency. — Nana Awere Damoah

Development aid is one of the reasons for Africa's problems. If the West were to cancel these payments, normal Africans wouldn't even notice. Only the functionaries would be hard hit. Which is why they maintain that the world would stop turning without this development aid. — James Shikwati

Development of states, urbanization, mechanization and industrialisation have all brought phenomenal strides to growth and prosperity of economies and their populace. They have also brought with them the insatiable need for energy resources with the related offspring of instability, conflict, war and corruption. — Archibald Marwizi

Under its current form, that is imperialism-controlled, debt is a cleverly managed re-conquest of Africa, aiming at subjugating its growth and development through foreign rules. Thus, each one of us becomes the financial slave, which is to say a true slave ... — Thomas Sankara

What we need in Africa is balanced development. Economic success cannot be a replacement for human rights or participation or democracy ... it doesn't work. — Mo Ibrahim

[Voltaire] theoretically prefers a republic, but he knows its flaws: it permits factions which, if they do not bring on civil war, at least destroy national unity; it is suited only to small states protected by geographic situation, and as yet unspoiled and untorn with wealth; in general "men are rarely worthy to govern themselves." Republics are transient at best; they are the first form of society, arising from the union of families; the American Indians lived in tribal republics, and Africa is full of such democracies. but differentiation of economic status puts an end to these egalitarian governments; and differentiation is the inevitable accompaniment of development. — Will Durant

None of the Asian countries that have moved closer to the developed countries of the West in recent years has benefited from large foreign investments, whether it be Japan, South Korea, or Taiwan and more recently China. In essence, all of these countries themselves financed the necessary investments in physical capital and, even more, in human capital, which the latest research holds to be the key to long-term growth.35 Conversely, countries owned by other countries, whether in the colonial period or in Africa today, have been less successful, most notably because they have tended to specialize in areas without much prospect of future development and because they have been subject to chronic political instability. — Thomas Piketty

I believe that we have reached a stage in life in the economic development of Africa where moving forward is perilous, moving backwards is cowardice and standing still is suicidal but we must persevere because winners do not quit and quitter never win. — Patrick L.O. Lumumba

Creativity is key to productivity and prosperity. — Ifeanyi Enoch Onuoha

Rome was not built in a day, but it was built everyday. — Nana Awere Damoah

Come to Africa and help! Wherever you may be in the world, there is something you can give back to the continent that gave you a name and an identity, at least. — Nana Awere Damoah

In Africa today, we recognise that trade and investment, and not aid, are pillars of development. — Paul Kagame

From the Balkans to Africa, from Asia to the Middle East, we have witnessed the weakening or absence of effective governance leading to the ravaging of human rights and the abandonment of longstanding humanitarian principles. We need competent and responsible states to meet the needs of "we the peoples" for whom the UN was created. And the world's peoples will not be fully served unless peace, development and human rights, the three pillars of the UN, are advanced together with equal vigour. — Ban Ki-moon

Several Mohammedan countries in North Africa and the Middle East are precisely in a period of fourteenth-century development and can show us, in a number of respects, a reflection of what the European medieval world was like. Similar towns, their houses piled one upon another, narrow swarming streets, enclosing a few sumptuous palaces; the same extremes of appalling misery among the poor and of opulence among great lords; the same story-tellers at the corners of the streets, propagating both myths and news; the same population, nine-tenths illiterate, submitting through long years to oppression and then suddenly rebelling violently in murderous panic; the same influence of religious conscience upon public affairs; the same fanaticism; the same intrigues among the powerful; the same hate among rival factions; the same plots so curiously ravelled that their solution lies only in the spilling of blood! — Maurice Druon

Illness and death are not the only consequences of the lack of access to water; it also hinders education and economic development. Widespread illness makes countries less productive, more dependent on outside aid, and less able to lift themselves out of poverty. According to the United Nations, one of the main reasons girls do not go to school in sub-Saharan Africa is that they have to spend so much time fetching water from distant wells and carrying it home. — Tom Standage

The murder of Lumumba, in which the U.S. was involved, in the Congo destroyed Africa's major hope for development. Congo is now total horror story, for years. — Noam Chomsky

In many ways Africa subsidised America and Europe's development. — Jesse Jackson

An enlightened and empowered generation is the key to our development in Nigeria and indeed in Africa — Fela Durotoye

Africa's agricultural sector has enormous scope for development, which would benefit both the continent's economy and its people. — Richard Attias

A narrative that branded Africa as little more than an economic, political and social basket case was not likely to provide the investment needed to drive development. — Mo Ibrahim

Africa may yet prove to be the spiritual conservatory of the world ... When the civilised nations in consequence of their wonderful material development, shall have had their spiritual susceptibilities blunted through the agency of a captivating and absorbing materialism, it may be that they have to resort to Africa to recover some of the simple elements of faith. — Edward Wilmot Blyden

Certainly, Africa accounts for only l % of world trade, and we cannot assure our development on our own. — Omar Bongo

It never ceases to amaze me how many Christians, in the North and the South, continue to refer to the former as the "developed" and the latter as the "developing" world. When we in the South use this term to describe ourselves, we are evaluating ourselves by a set of cultural values that are alien to our own cultures, let alone to a Christian world-view! All our normative images and yardsticks of "development" are ideologically loaded. Who dictates that mushrooming TV satellite dishes and skyscrapers are signs of "development"? Who, apart from the automobile industry and the advertising agencies, seriously believes that a country with six-lane highways and multi-story car-parks is more "developed" than one whose chief mode of transport is railways? Does the fact that there are more telephones in Manhattan, New York, than in the whole of sub-Saharan Africa, mean that human communication is more developed in the former than the latter? — Vinoth Ramachandra