Diplomat Offers Plan for Africa at HBS

The government and private sector can do more to help Africa emerge as a player in the international business arena, according to President Clinton's assistant secretary for the department of African affairs.

Susan Rice urged more than 500 business professionals and students Saturday to push for "the transition from aid to trade in the next century," explaining that such a long-term approach will promote the best interests of Africa and the U.S.

Rice's speech at the Harvard Business School (HBS) was part of a day-long conference, "Reversing the Brain Drain," organized by the school's Africa Business Club.

"The best trained Africans are leaving because they cannot find the challenging positions and the well-paid positions that they desire," said conference co-chair Ndidi M. Okonkwo, an HBS second-year.

Rice, who is responsible for all aspects of U.S. policy on Africa as special assistant to the president and senior director for African affairs, said, "The U.S. can hardly afford to ignore any emerging market or Africa's 700 million consumers."

According to Rice, there are more telephones in Manhattan than in all of Africa, and 50 percent of all Africans are under the age of 15. She hinted that these statistics, along with Africa's climbing growth rates, are just the tip of the African business opportunity iceberg.

Citing examples such as Coca-Cola's $35 million production and distribution plant in Angola and clothing company The Limited, Inc.'s plan to develop stores in Mauritius and Madagascar, Rice urged her listeners, most of whom were originally from Africa, to take their business know-how back to their communities.

She also emphasized the need to focus on human rights, which would not only benefit Africans themselves, but would also aid entrepreneurs by stopping intelligent and capable Africans from looking elsewhere for employment.

In his keynote speech earlier that day, Kwesi Botchwey, director of Africa programs and research at the Harvard Institute of International Development and former finance minister for Ghana, offered statistics to illustrate the magnitude of the "brain drain."

Most conference participants said Rice offered a good summary for those not intimately familiar with U.S. policy on Africa.

"It covered both positive and negative, so it wasn't so Pollyanna," said Novisi Atadika '99, who was a member of the conference logistics committee.

Some listeners, however, faulted Rice for being overly general in her address.

"She gets up there and treats Africa as one political entity, and it's not," said Letitia Abu-Danso, an employee of the Christian Science Monitor and conference participant.

Still, most participants said they enjoyed the conference.

"It was an opportunity for those going to school here to meet with so many of the who's who in Africa," said Frederick Antwi '01, co-president of the undergraduate Harvard African Students Association.

The conference, billed as the first of its kind and scheduled to be an annual event, attracted 35 HBS affiliates and 30 undergraduates, as well as participants from across the U.S., Europe and Africa.