African countries must reduce their reliance on other Western countries by boosting intra-Africa trade and also by eliminating their exploitation of Africa’s raw materials, according to the AfCFTA Secretary General and Uganda’s president. “President Kagame reminded us the other day that a country of 43 million people in Europe is feeding a continent of 1.3 billion people. We must take action to reverse this dependency of Africa on others whether it is for our food security or indeed our public health,” the AfCFTA chief said. In a separate but related development, Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni, speaking at the G25 Africa Coffee Summit, highlighted the loss of jobs and money that African countries face when exporting unprocessed goods at a low cost. To that end, Museveni expressed concern over the parasitic global system, where European countries take advantage of Africa’s raw materials, only to profit from their transformed products at a higher cost.

Source: The North Africa Journal August 16, 2023 15:50 UTC