Reparations for Africans Must Correct Deep Imbalances to Drive Continent's Prosperity: UN Official
Reparations for Africans Must Correct Deep Imbalances to Drive Continent's Prosperity: UN Official
The AU's 2025 focus on reparations is a forward-looking agenda, moving beyond symbolic redress to address present-day inequities, Claver Gatete, Executive Secretary of the UN Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), argued in an opinion article.
Gatete identified unfair trade regimes, inflated borrowing costs, and extractive value chains – where Africa exports raw commodities like cocoa beans instead of finished chocolate – as modern manifestations of historical dispossession.
The article follows a recent UNECA-sponsored conference on land policy in Africa, which positioned land governance as central to the reparations debate.
Gatete outlined a transformative path requiring:
🟠Secure Land Rights: Strengthening tenure, especially for women and smallholders, as a foundation for investment and justice.
🟠Industrialization & Value Addition: Dismantling incentives that keep Africa at the bottom of global value chains, enabling it to process its own resources.
🟠Leveraging the AfCFTA: Using the continental free trade area to build regional value chains and competitive markets.
🟠Engaging the Diaspora: Strategically partnering with the African diaspora for capital, expertise, and advocacy.
🟠Reforming Global Finance: Addressing unfair credit ratings and illicit financial flows that drain an estimated $88 billion annually from the continent.
True reparations will be measured by a rebalancing of power over land, capital, and technology, turning Africa’s vast resources into the foundation for broad-based prosperity, Gatete concluded.
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