Opening remarks by Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma, Chairperson of the African Union Commission, at the EU-Africa Summit on 3 April 2014 in Brussels.

The following is a full transcript of the opening remarks made by Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma, Chairperson of the African Union Commission, at the press conference of the EU-Africa Summit. She spoke quietly, but put forward some strong ideas for joint progress:

Thank you very much; I’ll just say a few things because I agree with what has been said by the Presidents and the President of the EU Commission. First I think it’s important to just recall that Europe and Africa have a very long history. We also are neighbours. We also have complimentary comparative advantages that can be used, to strengthen growth for the EU and Africa. And so the discussions under the theme “peace, prosperity and people” was very appropriate. The comparative advantages that I will mention are just a few:

One; Africa has 60% of arable land that is still available in the world, and so it means we have a lot of land that can be utilised for agriculture in particular, and this, and at the same time Europe has had a long experience of growing, processing, adding value to agricultural products. So these are two comparative advantages, we have the land, they have experience, we can put them together and we can both win, and we can both take advantage of this.

The second comparative advantage that we have is our population. Our population pyramids are in reverse. The African pyramid is standing on its base; the European pyramid is standing on its head. So it means Europe is ageing, Africa is young, and will continue to be young and will be probably the only continent by 2050 which will have a young labour force; the biggest young labour force. So this can be also used to our comparative advantage. We have this young population and if we invest in it as every continent, and all of us, humanity, our most precious resource is our people. So if we invest in this resource, and we can work together to invest in it, and as the president of the council said, at the moment we’re getting young people who are professional who come to Europe to work. They are welcome and they have no problem and nobody wants to send them back. Then we have many young people who die on the desert or across the Mediterranean who are not skilled, but who are trying to find greener pastures in Europe, and those are the ones that create challenges.

But if we concentrate on skilling our people, on investing in them, they will not have to come through Lampedusa, they’ll come through the airports and the ports and they’ll be welcome. And they will actually drive the development in Africa, but they can also contribute because young professionals are always mobile so they will still come as they are coming even today.  So I think that’s also something that we can look at in the fullness of time and see how we can work together and increase the investment in the young people.

And of course an Africa that is modernising needs infrastructure, and we’re not asking so much for grants for infrastructure, you can get a lot of return for your money, from your sovereign wealth, from business; they can get returns from our infrastructure. The infrastructure development in Africa will also assist integration, will assist trade, and will assist in modernising. It will also assist in tourism. So, that’s another area we have of comparative advantage. Our beautiful landscapes, our amazing sunsets, our shores, are just waiting to be explored. So we can work together to build, invest, joint ventures in the hospitality industry. And of course there is lots more to see in Africa that you don’t have in Europe and we, we understand that, that patrimony is not only ours but it’s the patrimony of humanity, and therefore, you are welcome to come as Europe to enjoy what we have that you may no longer have in Europe. So that’s another comparative advantage in that I think both the EU as a Union but also business can take advantage of.

The other comparative advantage is that we have huge oceanic spaces that we have not really explored. But we want to explore them to ensure that we build and we grow our blue economy. We want legal exploitation of our fish, of other resources in the oceans. And I think we can work together, transfer technology, but share also, what we get from there fairly, and we can sell to Europe a lot of what we get from our oceans. So there is a lot of comparative advantage that is complimentary that can be really exploited, then trade, as we industrialise whether through agriculture or adding value to our mineral resources, through energy, rebuilding our energy because: the only time I agree with people who call us “the dark continent” is when we look at our energy generation, we don’t have enough to light up a continent sufficiently, but we are working on that, and that’s another area we are industrialising now. You have industrialised over a long time but you have technologies that can leap-frog us from the fossil fuels to cleaner renewable energies if we transfer technology that also can help, and it will help both, we can also generate enough to also send across the Mediterranean.

So these are  some of the things that really in this partnership in addition  to what we are already doing and of course we can share how we can make full use of the other half of the population, women. We have some success stories   in Africa, you have some success stories in Europe which we can share. Rwanda has the biggest number of women parliamentarians in the world. They have more than 60% of women in parliament so; I think, in Europe there is another, one country that has more than 50%. So we can share all these experiences and build a very strong and enduring partnership. The partnership is there, it can be strengthened, it can be enriched, it can be widened and go deeper. So we think we've had a lot of constructive discussion around these issues. Now it’s up to us to really implement together. And together we can be two great continents.

And of course, I'm not saying much about peace because a lot has been said about it, but I just want to say, they are connected. If we can ensure that our young people have a stake in the future, they have jobs, they've got professions, it will be very difficult to entice them to go into crime, drugs or to be trafficked, or even to go and be recruited to, to kill. It will be very difficult. So I think both things go together, the one side all the development issues and on the other, peace. And I also agree that good governance, respect for human rights, is also very critical, and transparency in the way we do business and without corruption, without anyone corrupting another, all of us. And our citizens will understand if we are not corrupt even if there are still challenges, but the problem is if they see corruption then they think there is more than there is. So I think we can really work together on all these issues and Africa is open, and it’s a continent of enormous opportunities, but opportunities in themselves are not enough. We have to turn them into real wealth for the people. Thank you.

The Armed Attack in Woolwich... not the Machete Attack

Social media websites have blown up over the terrible attack in Woolwich yesterday. There have been generalised, anti-Muslim comments and a strong backlash against those comments coming from the less ignorant side of the population. Oddly, the energy company EDF has received hate on Twitter from those confusing them with the English Defence League, who made trouble in Woolwich last night. Thankfully there have also been many who try to remind people to think more of the victim than of the killers.

This is something that the media makes very hard to do. It can be seen in the name that the BBC has given the attack. It is a small and seemingly insignificant detail, but calling the incident a 'machete attack' rather than an armed attack raises a couple of issues. Firstly it is incorrect, the men carried two knives, a meat cleaver and a gun, no machete.

More importantly it changes the way the attack is perceived. The word 'machete' adds a level of brutality to the attack and makes it far more intimidating.  Machetes have a bloody reputation. Over half a million of them were imported into Rwanda from China in 1993 for use in the Rwandan genocide. Machetes were previously known as an agricultural tool, or one used to cut through rainforest undergrowth. That's how they were used by Americans in the Vietnam War; but since the Rwandan genocide they became known as a tool of brutal violence.

The fact that the men wanted to be recorded and caught makes it clear that they wanted attention for what they had done. Exaggeration of the the already brutal attack only gives them what they want. Unfortunately this is what the media does every time there is a public killing. The media's priority is no longer to report the straight facts (if it ever was). Media companies are in such strong competition with one another that they aim to sensationalise and scare in order to get our attention. After massacres like Columbine and Sandy Hook in America the lives of the killers were examined with a fine tooth comb, and the details shown to the public. In Britain we all remember Raoul Moat, but his victims names are forgotten. The victims of public murders are too often reported as a number, they become a statistic.

Take the power away from the killers. Call the incident in Woolwich an 'armed attack' or a 'knife attack'. 'Armed attack' is accurate and less brutal, while 'knife attack', though less accurate as a gun was used, softens the blow even more as it is a term more commonly found in the British media. Remembering the victim does exactly the opposite of what the killers want; it denies them and their statement attention, while supporting the government forces that they aimed to hurt.