TheCable

Kwara State Governor, Abdulfatah Ahmed, and renowned African entrepreneur, Mo Ibrahim (pictured), are among a high-powered panel scheduled to discuss new pathways to African growth and development at a summit in Paris, capital of France.

The event, tagged ‘Africa: The Future is Now’, will be organised by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) between October 7 and October 8.

The programme will explore, among others, whether Africa is taking off in general or through isolated cases.

It would also explore the champions and engines of success on the continent as well as the obstacles to growth and the place of the middle class in providing sustainable development.

Ahmed will discuss functional education and entrepreneurship as multidimensional approaches to developing Africa’s youth and by extension, its growth.

Other panelists are Moncef Cheikh-Rouhou, professor and member of the Tunisian parliament; Professor Achille Mbembe of Witwatersrand University, South Africa; Magette Wade, founder and CEO of Tiossan, Senegal; and Lionel Zinsou, chairman of PAI Partners, France.

Ahmed will join nine other finalists for the OECD DAC awards ceremony, also in Paris, where the state’s highly-acclaimed community health insurance scheme has been shortlisted for an award.

The forum will also feature a discussion of private public partnership ventures in healthcare delivery and the launch of the OECD DAC publication, Development Cooperation Report 2014.