EDITORIAL: Africa’s stifled growth potential

BRIDGETOWN, Barbados - Last week African business and government leaders met in Cape Town at the World Economic Forum on Africa to assess the impact of its growing wealth on alleviating poverty and to address the issue of transparency. It is well known that Africa’s impressive growth is not shared by millions of its people. Sub-Saharan Africa is home to a third of the world’s poorest people, and six of the top ten most unequal countries in the world. Africa’s potential is also being undermined by illegal capital haemorrhaging – often in the form of tax evasion by multinational oil, gas and mining companies, and in collusion with corrupt elected officials.