Javier Fernández Arribas
Atalayar’s Editor
How many times have we found that what we thought or believed to be a certain way did not correspond to reality. Or at least, the preception was closer to certain clichés and stereotypes that we had adopted almost mechanically when watching a fairly old film or the more or less usual information in the media, mostly television.
This is the case of the current reality in each of Africa’s 54 countries. The black continent that has gradually turned the emerging chapter into a denouement of growth and development supported by the creation and consolidation of its middle class. The holding of the Africa Spain Cooperation Summit in Madrid for the first time, with the participation of more than 250 representatives of different sectors from 15 African countries, has demonstrated the need to achieve greater, but above all, better information on what is happening in the various African countries. Organised by the Moroccan company One Africa Forum, the podium of the Eurostars Tower Hotel hosted professionals and leaders from countries such as Morocco, Ivory Coast, Senegal, Gambia, Benin, Mauritania, among others, together with Spaniards who agreed on professional approaches, far from any hint of charity, with win-win approaches, winning on both sides, backed by convincing arguments that placed African countries as a solution for Europe.
In addition to raw materials, fertile land and many other options, Africans offer a youth with continuous training, a spirit of self-improvement and an enormous desire to contribute to the development and progress of their country as an essential step towards their family’s well-being thanks to their work in what has already become a key element for many countries, the middle class. Faced with the ageing of European society, Africans are presenting themselves as a valid and stable option that avoids and overcomes the traditional risks of bad governance, corruption, conflict and little or no education and training. When one asks the region’s stock market managers, international consultants, or ministers and former Prime Ministers about the most favourable sectors for investment and for carrying out projects and business, the majority answer is: all of them, almost everything remains to be done. But undoubtedly infrastructure, housing and urban planning, water, renewable energies, digitalisation, banking, tourism, which are joined mainly by the traditional sectors of agriculture and mining. The most relevant conclusion of a meeting that has revealed how mutual knowledge is a transcendent factor for improving collaboration, is that Africa is a continent of opportunities for Spain.
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