International cooperation is for nation-states what friendship is for humans. The visit of President Emmanuel Macron of France to Nigeria last week is already yielding desirable dividends. France has endorsed an initiative to develop entrepreneurship and innovation in Africa, by offering N500 billion to kick-start the scheme.
Tagged Digital Africa Initiative, DAI, the scheme is aimed at creating a pool of entrepreneurial knowledge and business information sharing, as well as attracting European and American and Asian businesses to participate in the continent’s emerging enterprises.
French President, Emmanuel Macron, made the pledge in Lagos last week, in an interactive session with the alumni of the Tony Elumelu Foundation, TEF, and other African entrepreneurs. He witnessed the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding between TEF and his country, guaranteeing 700 per cent of new loans to the Foundation’s alumni, as a way of supporting Africa’s new entrepreneurial narrative.
President Macron, who spoke on migration and cross-border trade between Europe and Africa at the interactive session, insisted that Africans should work towards developing their continent. He said people fleeing their countries on account of war must be protected, urging the people of Senegal, Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana and Nigeria to stay back and develop their countries.
The French leader discouraged the culture of rearing multiple children, describing it as a recipe for poverty. His words, “It is crazy to have many children than you can care for and let no one tell me it is culture”.
Mr. Macron continued, “It is not African culture, unless it is the choice of women to continue to be used for child-rearing. Investment and education and economic opportunities are key for Africa. We will rather want those immigrants to succeed in Africa.” He declared that he would support regional integration that may warrant Francophone countries abandoning the CFA for a common currency.
