Former Nigerian Finance Minister Discusses How to 'Change the Face of Poverty’ at IOP Talk

Former Finance Minister of Nigeria Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala spoke about solutions to global poverty at the Institute of Politics at the Harvard Kennedy School Tuesday.

Okonjo-Iweala — who currently serves as chair of the board for Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization — initially focused her talk on several issues that are prevalent across Africa. Utilizing visuals from the Brookings Institute’s World Poverty Clock, Okonjo-Iweala said that “Africa is not converging fast enough.”

Along with raising specific concerns about Africa’s relatively high poverty and corruption levels, Okonjo-Iweala also highlighted potential solutions, saying she hopes Africa can “change the face of poverty and surprise the world.” She pointed to some African countries, such as Ethiopia and Rwanda, as case studies for other African nations to grow their economies.

“The question we should ask is what are those countries doing right. I am not saying they are doing everything right, but they are doing very many things right,” she said.

After her talk, Okonjo-Iweala fielded questions from audience members about the role of corruption in African poverty and argued that the term “corruption” should be disassociated with “Africa.”

“Of course there is corruption on the continent, so I am not trying to get away from that,” Okonjo-Iweala said. “But I don’t like that whenever you mention Africa, the next word is corruption.”

“We can’t characterize Africa with corruption,” she added.

Many students who attended the event said they appreciated Okonjo-Iweala’s insistence on separating connotations of corruption from Africa’s global image.

“I think I found it particularly insightful to listen to all of her comments, systematically refuting the ways in which Western literature or policy analysts choose to talk about Africa,” Aaryan G. Morrison ’22 said.

Dumebi M. Adigwe ’23 said the point about addressing the way ‘corruption’ is associated with Africa especially resonated with her, as it is something she discusses with her family.

“I think what she said was very important, that whenever you talk about Africa the next word is corruption,” Adigwe said. “I’m Nigerian, and we do that all the time [in my family] and I think it’s time to stop shifting blame and doing what she said and seeing what you can do to help.”