Ghanian ex-ambassador urges students to learn more about Africa
By Emily Mullin
February 18, 2008
The former Ghanian ambassador to the United States visited students and faculty at Ohio University on Friday and urged them to be more conscious of African current affairs.
Koby A. Koomson, Ghana’s ambassador to the United States from 1997 to 2001, enjoyed some success at developing commercial relations between the U.S. and the continent of Africa. Koomson, who spent many years in the United States before becoming ambassador, played an instrumental role in the passage of the African Trade Bill, which facilitates trade and investment between the U.S. and lucrative African markets.
Koomson is currently working on a project to bring a credit reporting system to Africa.
OU’s College of Business, Center for International Studies and the African Studies Program hosted the colloquium in Walter Hall.
Dean Hugh Sherman of the Ohio University College of Business met Koomson about two years ago when Koomson approached him with an idea.
“I wanted to establish an African diplomatic business and finance center,” said Koomson. As a graduate of the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, Koomson wanted to establish the center at his alma mater.
The project should have taken about a year and a half, Koomson said. But with the hard work of both men, the idea took only three months to implement.
The center’s purpose is to help Arkansas businessmen communicate with African ambassadors and businessmen in order to share ideas. Why Arkansas? Koomson explained that both Arkansas and Africa have an agrarian economy.
Koomson said that the purpose of his speech was to inform people about the African diaspora and what it means for the continent of Africa. The word “diaspora” refers to a geographic dispersion of people from their original homeland. In Africa, young people are leaving the continent in large numbers. Koomson calls this effect the “brain drain.”
“Our continent is slowly dying,” he said.
Koomson said the continent of Africa, which has a population of just over 900 million, is losing about 20,000 highly skilled professionals per year. This type of loss has serious economic and social implications, said Koomson.
But the stakes are already high for Africa. Koomson explained that many countries in Africa have no real middle class because of a lack of business, trade and investment opportunities. In addition, he said, Africa has become an “extractive” continent and has little to offer people within its own borders. Koomson described Africa’s current economic condition as a “revolving door of perpetual poverty.”
That is why Koomson is so adamant about mobilizing Africa’s economy.
Even students in a small, Midwest college town should be concerned with Africa’s economic woes, he said, even if it doesn’t directly affect them. “A problem in one part of the world eventually becomes a problem in other parts of the world.”
In an increasingly global economy, Koomson said that African students and professionals need to be taught critical skills if they are going to compete in the international market.
Koomson recently helped orchestrate a conference with American and African medical doctors at Howard University to talk about challenges facing African doctors and how to overcome them.
After the conference, Koomson said a few Americans decided to relocate to Africa to help there. Many of the participating American doctors, however, opted to “adopt” hospitals in Africa and are now working together to accomplish the same goals.
Koomson said he hopes to replicate this type of conference in other areas such as architecture and engineering to promote partnerships between the U.S. and Africa. These partnerships are “critical for development” in African countries, he said.
As ambassador from Ghana, Koomson was startled to discover that there are roughly 1,200 Ghanaian doctors in the U.S. and only 300 actually in Ghana.
This is why it’s so important, Koomson said, for the U.S. to help spur the African economy, especially in the private sector.
“Only the development of the private sector can help make a middle class,” he said.
Many countries in Africa are actually worse off than they were 50 years ago, Koomson explained. But he doesn’t fault African governments or public officials for that.
“You cannot blame government all the time.”
Many countries around the world, he said, are developing their economies at an alarming rate partly because of the growth of private-sector business. For Africa, it seems like a long road remains ahead.
But Koomson said he’s optimistic that people will start waking up to the problems facing Africa and the rest of the world.
Koomson said “remarkable progress”has been made already and he would like the U.S. and Africa to maintain a strong relationship as Africa continues to develop.
Comments
Please log in to post a comment.
