Investment climate in Africa

Abstract

A discussion of Africa's Investment Climate (IC) brings to mind an American humorist's apothegm about the vagaries of the weather. To paraphrase he said that everyone talks about the weather but no one does anything about it. There is an unhappy kinship between that pithy maxim and polemics involving Africa's IC. As a United Nations analysis of the Investment Laws and Regulations, in Africa observed: "There is abundant literature and controversy on the question of creating an adequate climate for foreign investments". These comments were made in 1965. And as recently as November 1969 a poll of foreign business interests revealed an unabated discontent with the business environment in many African nations.