On May 19, 2023, the President of the United Republic of Tanzania, Samia Suluhu Hassan, announced the holding, in Dar es Salaam, of the first Summit of African Heads of State on Human Capital, which has just ended on July 26, 2023. She called on her African counterparts and the development community to accelerate investments in populations in order to lay the foundations for a productive continent and a prosperous future.
This was the first ever Human Capital Summit in Africa to be held at such a leadership level, which provided an unprecedented opportunity to elevate the discussion to the highest political and technical levels. The purpose of this summit was to lead to national commitments and urgent investments to strengthen human capital, while ensuring the cohesion of action on this front.
Here is the intervention of the President of Madagascar, Andry Rajoelina
” (…) For this summit, it is a question of debating and finding a lasting solution on Human Capital. As you know, the African continent, we are the cradle of tomorrow’s growth because we have major assets, because we represent a quarter of the planetary population made up of young people today. Now, to be able to propose a solution, it is first necessary to take stock and look at the problem. That is to say, when we talk about Human Capital, it would be necessary for the State, for each Leader to be able to propose but of course to provide solutions so that each citizen can be useful within his family first. There are no equalities as long as there is no equality in access to Education, Health and Employment.
” It is for this reason that in Madagascar, during the four and a half years that I am at the head of the country, as President of the Republic, we have built 4,178 classrooms to educate more than 200,000 schoolchildren and students. This is truly a huge challenge for our country and, perhaps, even on the African continent. In less than four and a half years, to complete this area of Education, you know, studying with papers and books, it’s already difficult. Also, how could we educate our children without books and papers? It is for this reason that we have distributed over 11 million books and booklets in just four and a half years. Its very important. So this is in the field of Education.
“In the field of Health, the African continent, but also Madagascar, we have accumulated a lot of delay, since the population continues to increase but the infrastructures are slow to develop. It is for this reason that, since 1960 , the year of Madagascar’s return to independence, until 2019 when I was elected President of the Republic, there had been 15 hospitals for 25 million inhabitants. 15 reference hospitals throughout the island, from 1960 until 2019. And, personally, we launched the challenge, we built 28 hospitals in just four and a half years. I come back to what I was saying: we should support young people, adults and we should strengthen the presence of State.
“The presence of the State is the construction of infrastructure close to the population who needs it. To conclude on this area, there was a competition which was organized by the AfDB (African Development Bank) , the Ndiaye trophy.Four countries had been selected and, in relation to the infrastructures that we have built and built throughout the territory, Madagascar has had the Trophy of the Great Builder in Africa.So, this shows our desire to change things.
“Now, to come back to your question: how can we accompany the Youth to transform our Continent and our respective countries? Today, the Youth is our wealth. I always say, when I make a speech, that there are weapons much more powerful than bombs and missiles to transform and develop our country: our Earth, we are rich, we have arable land, but also our Youth, it is with these two elements that we can transform our respective countries.
It is for this reason that we should invest enormously in youth. By forming it but, as I was saying earlier, every citizen, every young person should be able to be useful within their family, within their community and, of course, within their country. So there are many young people today who are on their own. They no longer have any benchmarks, and it is the duty of each Leader to support them by investing massively in professional training, by supporting each sector of activity, whether it be Agriculture, whether it is New Technologies, to transform our country.
Thank you “./.
Collected by Jeannot Ramambazafy – July 27, 2023
