28 August 2019•Update: 29 August 2019
ANKARA
Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni on Wednesday urged the leaders participating in a Japan-hosted international conference to focus on solving problems that sap economic productivity in Africa, according to Ugandan media reports.
“I would want to have a harmonized thinking with colleagues on the issue of removing cost pushers which undermine the productivity of the economy. These are the cost of transport, electricity and money. If we don’t solve these we can’t move,” Museveni was quoted as addressing the Seventh Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD 7) by the New Vision news website.
Highlighting ways to resolve economic challenges in the resources-reach continent, Museveni noted that economic transformation would attract the private sector and push development.
“Africa, for various reasons, has not fully joined this transformation and this is where there is the huge opportunity,” New Vision quoted Museveni as saying.
“We are now dealing with the Fourth Industrial Revolution in the form of Artificial Intelligence ─ Intelligent Machines. All these jumps and leaps in technology, increase the productive capacities of the innovating or adopting societies to their benefit, first and foremost, and, to some extent, the rest of humanity,” he added.
Scheduled for the period “28th – 30th August, 2019”, TICAD 7 was held under the theme: “Advancing Africa’s Development through People, Technology and Innovation".
The summit aimed at the insurance of the African Union's (AU) ownership of the TICAD process, especially the inclusion of the AU’s strategic vision, and priority areas as mentioned in the AU Agenda 2063 as well as its first 10-year plan, according to the AU's website.
