Towards a New Paradigm in African Development - Olukorede WILLOUGHBY
Written by <a href="http://www.tasamafrika.org/en/component/comprofiler/userprofile/Olukorede%20WILLOUGHBY.html">Olukorede WILLOUGHBY</a>   
Mr. Chairman,
Distinguished participants
Ladies and Gentlemen


I commend the organizers of this forum, The Africa Institute of the Turkish Asian Center for Strategic Studies, for the initiative of this Turkish- Africa strategic dialogue. I thank them for the honor and opportunity accorded to me to address this eminent gathering of entrepreneurs, academicians and well-wishers of Africa in this great city of Istanbul. The 2nd International Turkish African Congress and the topical issues of African development it seeks to address are both apt and timely. Advancement in issues of culture, politics, economy, technology, health, education, agriculture, mining and tourism are the defining characteristics of the new Africa that is reaching out to friends and allies in the global community.

Distinguished Participants
You are all aware of the constraints and challenges to development in Africa and its various causes. You are also aware of the twin dynamics of internally-generated demands for orderly-but-accelerated transformation of the human condition in Africa and the desire to be part of the process of global change and attainments. Today’s event is, however, not about the constraints to development. It is about a new beginning for Africa, of a self-confident and self-reliant continent, concretely taking charge of its opportunities and seeking new possibilities. Africa’s thrust in the fight for elimination of poverty and prospecting towards sustainable development have been made possible by the transformation of the Organization of African Unity into the African Union in 2002 and the birth, earlier in 2001, of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development. NEPAD’s subsequent adoption as a program of the African Union for socio-economic renewal of the continent has provided the vision, mission and additional zeal for Africa to interrogate itself about the development trajectory it wishes to traverse, mobilize its citizenry in the process of self–reliant and indigenously-owned development, and engage its international partners, better, in its developmental agenda.
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