John Rogers speaks at the Atlantic Council Welcome Dinner for the US-Africa Leaders Summit

Ladies and gentlemen, your excellencies, residents and prime ministers, as well as special envoys and United States members of Congress, cabinet members, members of the diplomatic corps and other dignitaries, welcome. We welcome you tonight on the eve of the 2022 U.S. Africa Leaders Summit and the first such gathering in eight years. We're pleased tonight to be here as a collective who not only recognize the possibilities for so many countries in continental Africa, but who believe that the fullest potential is yet to be realized. Africa, a continent of 55 nations, diverse and rich, complicated and beautiful. Most here tonight, including me, will acknowledge the challenges; these are well documented. However, it is entirely appropriate, if not timely, to reflect on the progress that has been made in recent years and to celebrate the successes and hopefully the harbingers of what's to come. Looking out at this room, it's hard not to be humbled by the leadership, the sheer talent that we have assembled this evening. And it is a privilege to be here together, especially after recent uncertainty and the isolation from peers and friends and colleagues during the global pandemic. As a result of so much disruption, many of us today are managing through environments that have shifted unrecognizably. Change in its own right is hard, but global shocks make it even harder. So, central to our discussions these next few days, we hope to be able to find certain answers, to explore new ways to prepare for and to weather these inevitable storms, allowing for more time and space to focus on building towards a more prosperous future. And with that in mind, we have a wonderful opportunity before us with this summit to exchange ideas and to collaborate and to plan constructive next steps as we begin the new year in 2023. And at the outset, I want to commend President Macky Sall for his leadership of the African Union this past year, in addition to leading his own nation, Senegal, one of Africa's most stable democracies and often called the gateway to Africa, and rebuilding his country after the devastation of the losses related to COVID-19. President Sall took on the responsibility of chairman of the African Union at a very sensitive time. Suffice it to say, he was able to deliver some very significant accomplishments. With his fellow leaders in South Africa and Ghana and Rwanda, President Sall led the charge to have COVID vaccines developed in laboratories in Africa equivalent to those that we have across the broader nations. And further, he was instrumental in helping to negotiate a successful transition after the coup in Mali, securing the release of 46 captured soldiers from Côte d'Ivoire. President Sall was central to achieving the ceasefire between Ethiopia and Tigray, secured and signed just a few weeks ago. And we are also thrilled with the news that President Biden had plans to announce the U.S. support for the African Union to become a permanent member of the Group of 20 nations. And this comes after consistent advocacy from President Sall, along with so many others in this room, and something that we at the Atlantic Council have been advocating for some time. President Sall, for these selfless accomplishments and many more, we salute you, we congratulate you, and we thank you.

Before I yield the floor to his excellency, as a way to just start our dialogue tonight and to catalyze our collective thinking, I wanted to briefly frame what I believe there are three key success factors for the continent in the near term. And as you will hear, offsetting an area of tumult are many reasons to be optimistic, if not upbeat, about what the future can hold for the continent, its economy, and its people. First, it all begins with demographics. In 1950, the population in Africa was 177 million, and today the continent houses 1.3 billion people. That is expected to double by 2050, making Africa the world's largest region. And today, half of Africa's population is age 17 or less, and the active population aged 15 to 64 will triple by 2060. Against that backdrop, the internet and social media are increasingly empowering Africa's youthful population to become more politically active and, even better, to start companies and to launch new enterprises. This growing generation is tech-enabled and tech-savvy like never before, powering a digital revolution that is in turn helping to mobilize a social one. What's more, we increasingly see citizens willing to engage online to demand reform, to campaign for electoral candidates, and to share their ideas and find community. Communication, transparency, and openness in all of its forms are hallmarks of a free society and are being buttressed by greater access to the benefits of innovation and technology. I want to commend many of the leaders gathered here tonight for their support of free speech and for facilitating the freer movement of people and of goods and services across borders. The internet is borderless, innovation is borderless, and your efforts to collaborate are fundamental to alleviating poverty and providing access to jobs and opportunity for your citizens. On a continent where 600 million people lack reliable access to electricity, simple residential and commercial power generation at scale is a big priority. The clean energy revolution is attracting growing levels of investment in both wind, solar, water, and natural gas. As the urbanization trend continues, real estate developers can profit by finding sustainable and innovative ways to meet the demands of a rapidly growing population. And this leads to the second factor, which is stable, representative government. And during a 2000 visit to Ghana, I remember President Barack Obama, he famously said in an address to the parliament, 'Africa doesn't need strong men, it needs strong institutions.' And but institution building requires time and it requires patience. And fortunately, strong men, authoritarian regimes are no longer in vogue, and the undercurrents of change are underway. Of course, Africa is not a monolithic region. And elsewhere, support for democracy in Africa is high. Regional powerhouses in the west and in east Africa, Nigeria and Kenya, certainly have been on a more democratic trajectory in recent years, and activism is on the rise, especially among the young people as I spoke about. But all of this has been said many times and will not come as a surprise to those of you in this room. I would highlight this, however, because African nations have a rich democratic legacy in their own histories. And many of you know that the Mali Empire was a model of political integration of diverse peoples, like the Manden Charter of 1236, is said to be the first declaration of human rights. And further, the governance of the Ashanti was based on a checks and balances system. And so, in certain countries, even the power of the chief was so limited that he could be revoked by the people. So, said this in another way, these principles, these democratic principles, is not an import from other places around the world, but something that has long been part of the African culture. And I would also be remiss not to point out that the challenge that comes of representative government, something we are innately familiar with here in the United States, because one of our nation's founding fathers, Benjamin Franklin, when he was asked following the Constitutional Convention in 1787 what sort of government the new United States would be, he responded, 'A republic, if you can keep it.' And 235 years later, we are still struggling to keep it every day. And the world has seen our shortcomings throughout our history and in recent years, from just recently the riots on January 6th at the United States Capitol at the opposite end of Pennsylvania Avenue, where we are, just two miles from where we sit here, or to the struggles of the Civil War which almost broke this nation. This is why we strive to build strong, stable institutions which allow us to withstand such failings and continue to grow. And this brings me to the central observation that I wanted to make tonight, which is about capital investment. Inside of this room, most would be surprised to hear that Africa's debt is lower than European debt. And to highlight that point, the African Export-Import Bank has pointed out that Italy's external debt at the height of the COVID-19 crisis totaled 2.6 trillion, which is more than three times the combined debt owed by African countries to their external creditors at the end of 2019. And nonetheless, it is easier today for African nations to borrow from whom they can borrow from, the Chinese. And we must continue to work hard to change this and to overhaul outdated risk profiles that put open markets at a disadvantage when providing loans and working capital to African nations. And here again, I salute President Sall for his work on financing the African economies, especially his call for an African rating agency and the reform of the governance system so that African nations can finally access the cheaper debt needed to rebuild after COVID. And this will simultaneously necessitate the development of de-risking tools to give investors faith in African markets, as well as being ever mindful of accompanying prime risks, which are certainly high. The consequence of doing this incorrectly will only mean increased interest payments, which are already one of the fastest-growing budget items on many African countries' balance sheets, surpassing the health budgets of several countries. And part and parcel with the modernizing of a framework, we must find ways to attract more private sector investment. And we do that by building stable democracies, shedding the misguided notion of Africa being called the 'hopeless continent,' which was 20 years ago, not today. Geopolitical shifts and global economic meltdown have in some ways propelled Africa from being a niche to the mainstream contender on a number of fronts. And with the recession and the balance of the United States and Europe, investors, they see the potential for returns in fast-growing emerging opportunities, evidenced by the rise in the numbers of U.S. and European private equity and venture capital firms that are considering African nations as the next frontier markets. And I can tell you that from a personal perspective, in my own day job at Goldman Sachs, that our South Africa business, for example, is only a handful of franchises that are outside the United States where we have taken the decision to operate on a fully licensed banking platform with all of the firm's global businesses that are represented. And this is on the heels of us obtaining a banking license in South Africa in January 2020 as part of the regional expansion plans and building on the firm's two decades-plus history actually in that region. And that's because the stand-alone business case has been made and is totally compelling. Purchasing power is also looking healthy, and the middle class in Africa, major consumers themselves on that continent, they account for 42 percent of the population by 2060. And that's up, that will be up from 34 where we are today. And finally, the growing trend of greater environmental and social and governance investment, it just gives a different perspective on how to think about investing. So, with all of these themes as primers for our dialogue—demographics, political stabilization, and capital—I'll leave it there and look forward to what springs forth when you put all of the collective leadership that's here assembled in Washington for these days of meetings, the collective minds that come together and can present different ideas to tackle both the obstacles and the opportunities in the path forward. So, let me conclude by saying, on behalf of the Atlantic Council, we want to thank you all for being here this evening. And we hope that when you leave, you will be more convinced than ever of our commitment to advancing the nations in Africa. Thank you.