The bank’s aim is to promote economic growth that can create jobs for Africa’s youth and that stretches beyond the well-connected business class to workers and small businesses.
Commenting on the corruption and authoritarianism that Tunisia’s revolutionaries had campaigned against, Kaberuka tells The Africa Report: “The idea that you can have an autocratic path that leads towards development is a pure fantasy.”
Giving the example of the Korean peninsula, Kaberuka says that after the civil war North Korea was initially developing its economy and an industrial base faster than the south.
But as the south opened its economy and its political system, it developed a formidable industrial and technological base to become one of the fastest-growing economies in the developing world, and North Korea’s authoritarian system lost the economic momentum and lagged further behind.
This article was first published in the June 2011 edition of The Africa Report.
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