African prosperity activist Magatte Wade told an audience gathered in London for the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship (ARC) conference that the west needs to “leave Africa alone”.
Her comments came as she spoke of how “excessive” regulations on the use of energy sources in African countries are some of the major reasons why many African people still live in poverty today.
Africans need to be “left alone to make their own decisions when it comes to energy.” she said.
Speaking to the packed auditorium at ARC, the Senegalese entrepreneur, said that the west is currently “committing suicide” by limiting the use of emergy sources like oil, coal, and gas.
She said that ready access to and ease of use of fossil fuels was an existential part of economic prosperity adding that she knows of children in Africa who die because of “energy poverty
The author of The Life of a Cheetah, said that energy poverty and economic poverty are “correlated”.
Speaking to Gript at ARC, she said that African nations are poor because they are “energy poor”.
Wade said that if western countries wish to stem the flow of immigrants from Africa they need to support Africans in being able to access energy sources that are “reliable, affordable, and abundant” energy sources.
If this does not happen, she said that the west can expect to see “a lot more” immigration from Africans attempting to escape poverty in their home countries.
Wade also said that because of poverty on the African continent, many native people are unable to live with “dignity” and that Africans do not “suffer from the disease” of thinking that wealth is “dirty”, saying that the west is on a downward trajectory due to net zero and other green energy policies.
“We know that doesn’t work, we know that’s impossible,” she said.
Raised in France, Wade has repeatedly said that Africa is “not poor because of colonisation” and that the reasons for economic deficits in the region are down to excessive regulation.
She says that “many countries have been colonized before,” adding that “colonising each other is humanity’s history.”
Wade says she believes that because Africa is one of the latest historical examples of colonisation that there is a mistaken perception that “nothing like that happened to others,”
She pointed to Singapore as an example of a former colony saying it was now wealthier than its former colonisers, Britain.
Wade says that in order to be “respected” in this world, it is necessary to be among “the prosperous ones”.
Speaking of how free access to fossil fuels and the freedom to make decisions independently is key to African “prosperity” while the west insists that Africa “forget” these energy sources she asked, “What else is out there for now?”
You can read Wade’s research paper on the “African climate paradox” here.