Angola and Mozambique will overcome crises – Zimbabwean philanthropist Strive Masiyiwa

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Angola and Mozambique will overcome crises – Zimbabwean philanthropist Strive Masiyiwa

11:48 CAT | 30 May 2017

File photo / Strive Masiyiwa

Entrepreneur and philanthropist Strive Masiyiwa professed himself optimistic yesterday about the economic evolution of Angola and Mozambique, stressing that the main challenge facing these countries and the rest of the world is youth unemployment.

“The main challenge facing Africa is not only African. It is global, and it is called unemployment, especially job creation for young people, which is the biggest challenge in the world,” Strive Masiyiwa told Lusa on the sidelines of the Horasis Global Meeting conference in Cascais on the outskirts of Lisbon. which ended yesterday

Asked about the foreseeable evolution of the economies of Angola and Mozambique, the London-based entrepreneur and Zimbabwe’s wealthiest man expressed optimism and said that, if peace was achieved in both countries, there was every prospect of a happy future.

“I am very optimistic about Angola because I am old enough to remember the time when I thought that it would never see peace. I remember Savimbi walking around the country in 1975 … Angola is a young country, but looking at the arc of history, I am hopeful, I am optimistic, but I do not deny there are challenges,” he said.

Regarding Mozambique, Strive Masiyiwa said that gas could change the future of the country. “It could be a phenomenal economy, because looking at the size of the economy and the scale of gas discoveries, politicians need only understand and realize that they have a unique opportunity to make the country the most extraordinary economy of the next 25 years.”

The founder and chief executive of the telecom group Econet Wireless downplayed the economic slowdown in Mozambique. “I was born in Zimbabwe and I lived close to the war period, so if now they have dropped from the 7 percent which they have enjoyed for decades to 5 or 3 percent, I would not complain, because the country has an extraordinary future.”

On Africa, Strive Masiyiwa said he considered the ‘Africa Rising’ narrative about right. “Just remember that we have had growth of 5 percent over two decades and that in a continent of 54 nations there is not one that is in confrontation with another. This is historical.”

In 1990, when Nelson Mandela was released from prison, “there were seven countries with regular democratic elections, and today there are fewer than seven countries that do not have regular elections,” the philanthropist said, adding that Africa’s youth represent a huge opportunity for change.

“Dealing with the employability of young people is a global challenge, not just an African problem, and so is migration,” the entrepreneur said, noting that “the root problem is how to secure enough investment in Africa to create jobs that do not create destabilizing forces at a global level.”

The migration of Africans to Europe is an example, he said, lamenting that “Europe debates the problem alone, Africans debate the problem alone, nobody convenes a major world conference on this nor tackles the root problem. And in the meantime there are 500 drowning in the Mediterranean every year”.

Source: Lusa