06 Jul Interview with Patrice Talon, President of Benin
BF: Regarding the context of Benin, the countries of the region face similar challenges as well as their own challenges. Can you tell us about the common challenges in Benin and its neighbors? What aspirations are specific to Benin? How do you explain Benin locally, regionally, and internationally?
Patrick Talon: Your question reflects the vision that the world has of Africa. The other regions of the world see Africa as one country: the same people, cultures, challenges, and concerns. It is a pity that Africa is seen in this way because it reflects the lack of interest that other regions of the world have for Africa’s diversity.
This is why you see summits like U.S-Africa, China-Africa, Japan-Africa, France-Africa, etc., but you will never see a U.S.-Asia, U.S.-Europe summit, except in the form of a community, like the European Union. The concept of a whole continent going to meet one country only applies to Africa, and that’s a shame. Things are done that way, but it’s up to us to work to change this image that people have, because we are very different countries with very different concerns, specificities, and challenges.
Having said that, we unfortunately have one thing in common, which is important, which is the impression of a generally poor continent that is and accumulates the failings and shortcomings that prevent communities from developing. You could say that Africa is made up of two parts: North Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa. And then there is South Africa itself, which is different and is today sometimes conflated with Sub-Saharan Sahara. That is common to all of Africa, particularly to Sub-Saharan Africa: generalized poverty.
Furthermore, the lack of seriousness and rigor characterizes most African countries. When we take countries like Benin, Nigeria, Togo, Congo, Cameroon, Chad, all these African countries, seen from the outside, are characterized as countries that lack rigor, which is associated with corruption and bad governance. These things are unfortunately true of all of Africa. This is what leads people, sometimes, to consider the continent as a single country with the same failings. We are aware of this, and we want to break this negative aspect first and then tackle other individual challenges.
It is true that the challenges are common and that specific challenges seem to me to be even less important than the overall challenge. Since 2016 and my taking office, we have tried to change this perspective with local populations by telling them that the cause of Africa’s poverty is ourselves. This is not the past. The past is the past. The past may have been characterized by delayed development, but that is in the past. Slavery was an unfortunate, but human phenomenon. And Africa is not the only continent that has known slavery, it also existed in other continents, including in Europe itself. We cannot continue each time to hide ourselves behind our unhappy past and say that it is because of this that we will be eternally poor, begging charity from other countries and continents.
People need to be aware of our shortcomings today and know that we cannot move forward separately from the rest of the world. When you put in hard work, you can grow. Today, you don’t have to be a genius to live well or be rich. Sometimes those who are rich themselves are not geniuses. The first factor of development is seriousness and hard work.
Since 2016, our main objective for the development of Benin has corresponded with this. We want everyone in the administration, the private sector, agriculture, the economy, in all areas, to be more rigorous in what they do. Laws and regulations now require everyone to be rigorous. We have initiated many reforms since 2016 to reorganize the administration, the private sector, and political life. Beyond these reforms, and what I consider an essential factor of development, is everything that requires special attention, such as investment, for which, even if we are serious, we need other elements to accompany these efforts. These include infrastructure (roads, water, electricity, etc.) which must become fundamental. We must also tackle energy. As far as investments are concerned, we are now one of the best-rated countries in Africa, which allows us to access favorable financing conditions and make the necessary investments in these areas.
The other fundamental element that makes men progress quickly is competence. If you have skill in addition to seriousness, that’s all you need. However, many of our young people are asking for volunteers. They lack qualifications and technical training in all areas. Vocational technical training was absent from our education system and the few technical schools we had have not been functioning. We have therefore decided to invest significantly in vocational technical education to provide jobs to our fellow citizens and ensure that the job market is compatible with the offer. It is competence and training that will make the difference between the different regional countries.
Another important thing is to attract investors to our country. These do not necessarily come to Africa because it is considered a risk area for all the reasons mentioned above. For example, there are almost no American investments in Benin. A challenge for us is therefore to make our environment more attractive, through reforms and through the whole infrastructure system. If there is accessible energy, roads and a legislative framework, the country can become attractive.
Finally, a last problem very specific to West Africa and the countries bordering the Sahel, such as Benin, is that of security. This is a very serious problem, which threatens the countries of the Gulf of Guinea. Violent extremism has taken hold in some neighboring areas, and freedom of movement means that our border defense forces are often subjected to attacks. For a year and a half, attacks have become rarer because we have deployed a lot of resources to ensure that the population cooperates with security forces and that government action is more effective. The threat is still there, especially in more isolated communities, but it is a sign that the government’s action is effective.
BF: Regarding the Benin-U.S. relationship, last December there was a U.S.-Africa summit where President Biden brought together 50 delegations in Washington DC to speak with different entities about the challenges of the continent. Other visits followed, notably that of Kamala Harris. Biden also announced more than $15 billion ‘on a two-way trade and investment deal.’ Do you think these meetings show that the United States is now taking Africa seriously? How do you see the relationship between these two geographical areas after these announcements?
Patrick Talon: I went to this summit, and for me it signaled a new willingness from the United States to invest more in various sectors, especially in trade or investment, so that Africa can accelerate its development. Still, I wouldn’t say it shows any more seriousness than before. The United States has always been, in a way, a partner for Africa. Since independence, Africa has benefited from a lot of aid, whether from European, American or Asian countries, but this has not yet generated the expected development, which means that international aid did not come materially.
What is proposed, and I tell you sincerely, does not seem to me to be that ambitious in view of the investment challenges (which are enormous) whether for energy, road infrastructure, or industrial development zones. These plans, which should be welcomed, do not suggest that there are likely to be investments and support for massive development that would allow us to overcome our difficulties in the coming decade. 50 to 60 years ago, when the countries of Europe financed their basic infrastructures, they had access to financial resources with fewer constraints. The convergence rules were not applicable to these countries. Today, when you want to finance a road or a power plant, it is with financing with a maturity of 12-15 years and rates of 7-10%. The conditions are therefore very unfavorable for those who have not yet made their basic investments. It is therefore necessary to find new instruments to promote the financing of major investments once the country demonstrates its aptitude for sustainable good governance.
President Biden said there must be investment in Africa. But today there are not many American investors who are ready to come here, and here too we have to work on the vision that investors have of Benin while developing instruments to de-risk the foreign investment. The state must be able to put things in place to mitigate risk so that investors can exit and be reimbursed for their investments under certain conditions. If we can set up this kind of mechanism on the bilateral level, it will facilitate the establishment of foreign companies in Benin.
Reviving dynamic of cooperation with the United States is therefore very good, but it must not mean only American companies will come and win public service contracts. I tell companies that are investing in Benin that it is different from coming to find a market where you would sell your expertise or goods, because that is closer to trade than to investment.
Today, it is more trade that is the subject of great declarations, of promotion, but we need investments, we need people to come with their financial resources to create a processing plant for cashews, pineapples, soybeans, textiles to be exported all over the world, as the Americans did in Asia. Today some African countries are ready to receive investments and to produce. We have in Glo-Djigbé an industrial area where many factories are being set up by Africans and Asians, but very few Europeans and Americans at the moment. These factories will concentrate skilled labor and produce goods for international markets; this is what will lead to development. We therefore expect multilateral and bilateral cooperation to speed up these investment promotion mechanisms. Even without them we will move forward, but with more ambition we will go faster.
BF: What are the main challenges and victories that your administration experienced during its first mandate? What are your priorities and main objectives for your second term and the years to come?
Patrick Talon: As I told you, the main challenges that we identified at the beginning of the mandate were to reform Beninese society: the administration, the private sector, judiciary, and trade rules. We spent most of the mandate convincing people of the need to make these reforms. We have therefore started to establish standards in terms of legislation for the environment, trade, and women’s rights. Today Benin has implemented some of the most advanced legislation in the world for the protection of women’s rights and the fight against violence against women. So, in many areas, Benin has implemented regulations that are put into practice.
We have doubled our tax revenues without increasing tax rates because more and more people are paying their taxes. This positive dynamic can also be observed at customs, in education, in health, etc.
Strikes have also disappeared. Before 2016, schools barely functioned for half of the school year due to untimely strikes carried over from year to year. The regulations we have put in place have not abolished the right to strike, but they have contained the desire to do so, because when you lack everything, you must first make individual efforts. These reforms have been difficult and sometimes criticized because they may have seemed retrograde in relation to the new global environment. However, to achieve everything that the United States and other developed countries have, we must have more restrictive rules than in your country.
If Europeans are required to work 35-37 hours a week, is working the same length of time in Benin enough to develop or catch up? At a constant salary, we could say that you have to work more per week. If the technical data proves it, and even if we don’t have the means to finance it, we could ask our citizens to work one more hour per day because it is the only way to catch up. It’s a collective effort out of step with the rest of the world, but it meets our needs. The reforms must be part of a logical effort, and we have seen that in a few years the country has been transformed.
We have also reformed politically. We need so many skills, so much expertise to structure the country, that political offices, which must be occupied by enlightened individuals, require that we regulate access to them. We have made reforms in this area, which have given the impression that we have gone backwards on the democratic level, but we believe that the system should no longer allow cartels to seize local administrative power. Everyone must be able to show their credentials and answer for what they do in terms of governance. The civil servant, in the same way as the health professional or the policeman, exercises a function of public interest and must be accountable. To make a comparison with the political system in the United States, in the same way as when it was introduced, the system sought to balance the power of certain states in the union. We seek to lay down markers to define access to political office.
I am therefore quite proud of the results and the degree of adoption of these reforms by the people of Benin. Even if everything is not perfect, we can see that we are on track. Benin already has another mentality, and that is the most extraordinary success of the last six years. Now, the second mandate must transform the trial in the various fields of the economy: the tourist field, agriculture, industry, technical and professional training, etc.
BF: Do you want to add anything that we haven’t covered yet? What would be your message of confidence to foreign investors interested in Benin?
Patrick Talon: The first message I like to send is: come to Benin, just for the weekend, as a tourist to see, to feel. It is also important to read what the country has done in terms of reforms and to get an idea of everything Benin has done to distinguish itself, to realize that Benin is already a different African country from the one it was just a few years ago. But to feel it yourself, without necessarily being ready to invest, you can come and meet the authorities. You will then realize that the business environment necessary for safe and sustainable investments is among the best here. We can’t say that we have one of the most qualified workforces, but we offer accelerated training for technical executives in various fields. We are in the process of launching a program to build large technical schools at all levels (medium, intermediate, and higher) to accelerate the creation of skills. When Beninese competence itself is not sufficient, Benin also benefits from other nationalities on the territory since there are Ivorians, Togolese, Senegalese, Indians, Estonians, Chinese, etc., all of whom work in the public and private sectors. So the skilled labor that was lacking in Benin is more available today via international labor because Benin has become an attractive country.
The social environment is very attractive and coming here makes it possible to see that a small village is in the process of being transformed and becoming the heart of West Africa.