1. The Article[1]
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BlueInvest Africa 2024
blue economy
Wednesday 3 July 2024, 09:00 - Thursday 4 July 2024, 16:00 (WAT)
Description
BlueInvest Africa is an event, initiated by the European Commission taking place in on 3-4 July in Kenya. The conference aims to facilitate meetings between African entrepreneurs seeking financing and international investors scouting for opportunities, all centred around projects capable of propelling Africa's blue economy forward.
The focus for 2024 is to spotlight transformative projects within maritime and coastal sectors and interior waters, emphasising sustainable innovation, job creation, and marine ecosystem preservation. Also provide a platform for African-based companies and global investors to forge strategic alliances, exchange knowledge, and propel the blue economy to unprecedented heights. BlueInvest Africa 2024. Overall, BlueInvest Africa 2024 offers a comprehensive platform for learning, collaboration, and growth, making it an invaluable event for anyone interested in the sustainable blue economy.
Find out moreWelcome to BlueInvest Africa 2024!
Organised by the European Union in collaboration with the Government of the Republic of Kenya. Under the high patronage of H.E. DR. William Samoei Ruto, PhD, C.G.H, President of the Republic of Kenya and Commander-in Chief of the Defence Forces. BlueInvest Africa is an important business event, initiated by the European Commission in 2022. The objective of BlueInvest Africa is to facilitate meetings between African entrepreneurs seeking financing and international investors scouting for opportunities, all centred around projects capable of propelling Africa's blue economy forward. This initiative is a testament to the power of collaboration, symbolizing a new era of partnership between Europe and Africa. Building on the resounding success of our inaugural edition in 2022, which brought together 500 delegates from 40 African countries, BlueInvest Africa 2024 aims to further elevate the blue economy in the EU-Africa political agenda.
The focus for 2024 is to spotlight transformative projects within maritime and coastal sectors, as well as interior waters, emphasizing sustainable innovation, job creation, and marine ecosystem preservation. This event provides a unique platform for African-based companies and global investors to forge strategic alliances, exchange knowledge, and propel the blue economy to unprecedented heights. BlueInvest Africa 2024 is more than just a conference; it's a movement towards a sustainable future, driven by the shared vision of a thriving blue economy that benefits both continents.
H.E. Dr. William Samoei Ruto
We are honored to announce that H.E. Dr. William Samoei Ruto, PhD, C.G.H, President of the Republic of Kenya and Commander-in-Chief of the Defence Forces, will be a guest speaker at the opening ceremony of the second Blue Invest Africa event in July 2024. President Ruto's participation underscores Kenya's leadership in Blue Economy development. In his words, "Kenya is a champion of blue economy development which is demonstrated by hosting the second BlueInvest Africa event.". His presence and insights will undoubtedly enrich our discussions and inspire further progress in sustainable economic practices.
How do participants benefit from attending the event?
Participants of BlueInvest Africa 2024 stand to gain significant benefits from attending the event. Key advantages include:
Networking Opportunities: Attendees will have the chance to connect with a diverse range of industry leaders, investors, and entrepreneurs from across Africa and Europe, offering unparalleled opportunities for networking and forming strategic partnerships.
Access to Investors: For entrepreneurs and companies, the event provides a platform to present innovative projects to potential investors, opening doors to funding, mentorship, and collaboration opportunities.
Knowledge Exchange: The event features expert talks, panel discussions, and workshops, enabling participants to gain insights into the latest trends, challenges, and opportunities in the blue economy sector.
Visibility and Recognition: Presenting projects at such a prestigious event enhances visibility and recognition within the industry, which can be pivotal for emerging businesses and innovators.
Collaboration with Public Authorities: The event facilitates interaction with public authorities, providing insights into regulatory frameworks and policies, which is crucial for businesses operating in the maritime and coastal sectors.
Skill Development: Entrepreneurs and professionals can benefit from skill-building sessions and exposure to new ideas and technologies, which can be instrumental in driving their business strategies.
Contributing to Sustainable Development: By participating, attendees contribute to the broader goal of sustainable development, helping to shape a blue economy that is environmentally responsible and economically viable.
Overall, BlueInvest Africa 2024 offers a comprehensive platform for learning, collaboration, and growth, making it an invaluable event for anyone involved in or interested in the sustainable blue economy.
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2. My review
I wish to contend that in the current ordering of the world ecomomic system, schemes like these that start quite innocuously, hide an uncanny strategy based on taking advantage of the financial muscle that European countries command, to set the basis for future control of waters and water resources (such as fishing) of the “Global South”, with veiled but predatory force.
BlueInvest targets two main resources: fishing and water. There is prediction that control of water may come to be the trigger for major wars between countries in the future. The behaviour of Europe points to the tendency to start projects in conservation areas, especially those that are irrigated by rivers or lakes. Apparently innocent charitable NGOs from Europe tend to establish environmental protection projects to help African governments, and in the process obtain from those governments approval and police force to help displace populations, in the name of conservation. The success of these projects is open to debate, but they tend to perpetuate themselves in a manner that suspiciously look like buying time for events that can in future precipitate claims to territorial ownership by occupation. A future migration into African patches of paradise is being prepared. Buutttisr sonal view.
But let us come back to the more immediate issue: this BlueInvest conference takes place this July in Kenya. Why Kenya? This is the core of my lucubration. And I contend that this is one of those conferences that have happened and will continue to happen in Kenya because President Ruto has been projecting himself as the best defender of capitalist interests in his country and in the region.
With the support of a savvy marketing strategy, he has engineered an official visit to the US, and managed to get his country elevated to a strategic non-military ally of NATO. In the context of a clear NATO defeat in Ukraine, this makes Kenya a major European ally, helping to diminish the European strategy blunder
His acceptance of American efforts at using police force from Kenya to promote American interests in Haiti, are attempts at making black Africans face African blacks in Haiti, and thus facilitate the prevalence of American interests there.
President Ruto’s position on international struggles of peoples under oppression (Palestine, Western Sahara), make Kenya a virtual ally against world condemnation of the genocide in Palestine
All these diplomatic blunders have made Kenya the favorite marketing place for Western interests in Africa. All the while, President Ruto continues to talk from both sides of his mouth, presenting himself as the Pan Africanist.
BlueInvest Africa states that its objective is to facilitate meetings between African entrepreneurs seeking financing and international investors seeking for opportunities. To collaborate in propelling African blue economy forward. What BlueInvest is counting on is the opportunity of directing the shiny spotlight on a President the enjoys flattery, thus winning the highest politically connected people. There are officials in African governments capable of creating and registering shell (empty) companies, mostly with no funding of their own, to partner with international capital under the guise of PPP (Public-Private Partnership). We (we in Africa and the Europeans) all know that the African participants in this partnership are government officials that control, negotiate and approve the operations on our territories of this foreign capital. These African participants suddenly call themselves businesspeople, with no manifest experience of business, facilitated by their father or relative President or Minister of a powerful portfolio. The veil of commercial confidentiality protects our businesspeople and creates an easy environment for corruption. But corruption is a two-way street, where the corrupted is an agent of the corruptor. In fact, if Africa had a loud media like Europe, we would very quickly find that there is more corruption in the Global North that barks corruption at us. I am not digressing because it is all part of the package, but back to BlueInvest.
In its statement of the networking opportunities, BlueInvest intends connecting investors from Europe and entrepreneurs from Africa. Once again, Europe with the money, Africa with the business opportunity but without the money.
It is a simple matter of fact: African countries are not rich because of a functioning economy, but from the sale of raw resources. In other words, the revenues of African countries are not derived from competitive industries, but from the power of disposal over land. Suppliers for the production of value-added that takes place outside the Continent.
And of course the announcement of the conference can afford to be paternalistic and state that this is an opportunity for mentorship. So, they are coming to mentor us. Colonial mentality that won’t die, like a horn that won’t be hidden by a bag.
Unless this Africa/ Europe unequal relationship can be corrected, domination will be the eternal tendency: Africa supplies, and Europe takes, by dangling money that does not even stay in Africa. Because:
first, the industry experts come from Europe and their salaries are genuinely repatriated to their countries,
secondly, the production is for the European market, and
thirdly, the African elites that form these PPPs are enticed to, and tend to keep their monies in Europe, are facilitated into buying properties in Europe and some even retire in Europe!
Without the effort of even researching, I am sure of finding empirical evidence of my statement to the effect that one can safely say that for every 100 Euros of administrative costs of operations in Africa, 90 Euros return to Europe, with the help of African elites. In addition to the 90 Euros, for every 10,000 Euros that are invested in the production, a full 9,000 also go to Europe in the form of fishing, mineral extraction, gas and energy transfers. So, the business case is strong enough: claim to have invested 10,100 Euros in Africa, and get in return 9,900 Euros. Mostly untaxed. Who does not want to go to Africa!
On the other hand, use the controlled media to describe Africa as insignificant, disease-ridden. Above all, keep some insignificant development programmes running that develop nothing. Above all, ensure that no mistake is made of creating industries locally.
Two examples of the Lopsided relationship
Financial monopoly: Do we notice that the head of the financial institution that determines our economic fate is always a European: The Director-General of the IMF is always a European and the Deputy is always an American. The conditionalities they impose on the financial support they provide have actually systematically eliminated industries in Africa. After that destruction, have imposed trade liberalization that allows them to dump second-hand products from their countries. Some of the conditions they impose on countries of the Global South are:
Cutting social expenditures.
Focusing on resource extraction,
Devaluation of currencies,
Trade liberalization, lifting import restrictions,
Enacting laws that protect foreign investment and enhance the rights of foreign investors above national laws,
Forcing the balancing of budgets while they print their own currencies (the French even control the currency and finances of a dozen African countries).
Trade practices and relationships: I could take the EU_ACP Agreements but that would make for a whole chapter. For the current purpose, I will take only one example: Fishing, highlighting the current conflict between the EU and Senegal.
Europe’s tuna overfishing along the coast of Senegal has exhausted fish stocks, and pushed Senegalese youth to migrate to Europe in desperation[1]. Many fishermen in Senegal state that the agreement between the EU and Senegal on fishing is decimating their livelihoods, which encourages many young people to make the Mediterranean sea trip to Europe, to go and seek temporary employment picking fruit and vegetables or other menial jobs. It is about Europe coming to destroy African economies and then after plundering, proceeding to close their borders to these “wretched of the earth from Africa trying to invade Europe”! That is the whole philosophy that has turned the Mediterranean Sea into a shameful European cemetery for Africans.
That is a colonial philosophy at work that is bound to create conflict as the new African generations no longer accept the status quo of the poor feeding the rich[3]
So, what is BlueInvest offering that is not neocolonialism? Do we still find it surprising that the Kenyan youth are attacking state institutions that oppress them? These youth have not yet said their last word. Mali, Burkina, Niger, Kenya, where next… Southern Africa?
Jose,
Tete, 01 July 2024
[2] https://www.seafoodsource.com/news/supply-trade/spain-accuses-senegal-of-denying-eu-fleet-fishing-permits
[3] https://news.mongabay.com/2024/05/to-renew-or-not-to-renew-african-nations-reconsider-eu-fishing-deals/
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