Professor Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel Prize Laureate in Economics, on Tuesday said the resources of Africa are given away in return for pittance. The economies of most African countries rely heavily on few primary commodities whose prices fluctuate widely in the world market. That apart, developing economies, he noted also suffer from inadequate investment in the manufacturing sector while Foreign Direct Investment inflows are directed to the extractive industries. Prof Stiglitz said all these must be reversed to ensure a structural transformation of the economies to accelerate the pace of growth. Delivering a lecture on the topic: "Transforming African Economies: Lessons from Asia," Prof Stiglitz said countries must focus more on the objective of development by ensuring that education help people to fulfil their potentials while the gains of growth were equitably shared among the population. The lecture was organised by the Institute of Democratic Governance and the African Centre for Economic Transformation (ACET), both civil society organisations to provoke discussions on how to enhance the continent's economic development. He said the state must play a catalytic role since 'development does not only happen by itself.' The Economics Professor emphasized the need for African countries to focus on productivity, invest in higher education and infrastructural development to enable them to transform their economies and speed up the process of development. In a discussion spanning issues and challenges associated with globalization in today's rapidly changing world, Prof Stiglitz asked governments to play the lead role by building effective systems and regulations that would promote the rapid growth of the continent’s economies. He said all developing countries were in the process of transforming their economies adding that that required special attention and a concrete policy shift from how agriculture had been managed in the past as well as a change in economic structure and management. He said although Africa countries had shown remarkable growth in the last few years, the challenge of rising food and oil prices was threatening to undermine these growth prospects. This, he said, would make the sustenance of current growth prospects difficult. In addition, countries must use their local experts who would nurture home-grown policies and strategies in dealing with the future economic direction of the continent to give meaning to African ownership instead of allowing 'outsiders' with little knowledge of the situation to dictate the pace and shape their destiny. Touching on the Doha Round of talks in the World Trade Organization, Prof Stiglitz said developing countries were likely to lose out on any agreement reached because what is sought to be corrected when the Round was launched is still being forced on the developing countries. One of these issues is the elimination of subsidies that developed countries continue to pay to their farmers, thereby putting the developing countries at a disadvantage. "To me the so-called Doha development Round is like pouring an old wine into a new bottle. In this circumstance no agreement is better than a bad agreement," he said at a Luncheon with executives of the Association of Ghana Industries. Prof Stiglitz said the developed countries, having realized the difficulty in concluding the round, had embarked on a crusade of signing Free Trade Deals with various regional blocs to enable them have the same access they have always had. He urged African trade ministers to be wary of free trade agreements, adding that "it is actually a managed agreement." In this direction it is important to negotiate the agreements and reshape where necessary to meet the socio-economic development aspirations of the region. There is also the need to act collectively as a bloc while the political elites must be prepared to take the tough decisions on such agreements when necessary. On the industrial sector, Prof Stiglitz said government must play active role in accelerating the pace of industrial expansion through the pursuit of macro-economic policies that would insulate industries to enable them to grow. On the oil discovery in Ghana, Prof Stiglitz called for transparency, openness and a strong system to track the revenues as well as the building of a national consensus as to how the funds generated would be equitably distributed to ensure growth. Source: GNA