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Presentación del libro "África en transformación", de Carlos Lopes
Carlos Lopes, former Secretary General of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), is undoubtedly considered to be currently one of the most prestigious and influential economists on the continent. Lopes is the author of this work, “África en transformación / Africa in transformation”, published by Los Libros de la Catarata as part of Casa África’s Essay Collection.
The presentation event will take place on 3 July 2019, at 12:30pm, at the headquarters of the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID), located at Avenida Reyes Católicos nº4 in Madrid. Casa África will take advantage of this event to hold a meeting with representatives of the Spanish business sector and a series of interviews with the Spanish media.
In “Africa in transformation” Carlos Lopes conducts a rigorous, exhaustive and necessary analysis of key aspects of Africa’s growth and development, addressing African transformation with reference to the following challenges: changing politics and understanding its spaces, respecting diversity, transforming structures through industrialisation, increasing agricultural productivity, revising the social contract, adapting to climate change and taking on a more prominent role in relations with China. The author reviews some of the most pressing development challenges facing African countries and provides the remedies he considers to be most effective with suggestions on how to make the most of what is to hand, what is available. He also describes the conditions necessary to adopt industrial policies beyond the happy narrative of “Africa’s take-off”.
Carlos Lopes is an economist, university professor at the University of Cape Town (South Africa) and the current High Representative of the African Union for negotiations with Europe. He is undoubtedly considered to be one of the most prestigious and influential economists on the continent. A first-class African voice, whose professional career has been a persistent battle against the stereotypes which surround Africa and its political and economic processes, offering us a whole treaty of economics to highlight the potential of a continent whose narrative written by Africans themselves has often, regrettably and deliberately, been ignored.
In his book he answers such simple yet complex questions as why Africa is poor when it is so rich in natural resources. Addressing issues such as industrialisation, the potential of the blue economy, the importance of agriculture and the potential of the green economy as a driver for feasible and effective growth. Lopes shows us in this work the paths that African countries and their multilateral institutions are taking in these key sectors.
Added to all this is the difficulty of the issues being framed in a complex present, which he calls the age of doubt, in which both the omnipresent African demographic scenario and the already real and measurable impact of climate change contribute to an economic environment in which the great powers wage trade wars and promote protectionism, but which have to assume the new role that the African continent plays on the global map.
