Speakers at the Kgalema Motlanthe Inclusive Growth Forum have emphasised the importance of harnessing the power of artificial intelligence and leveraging the youth dividend on the continent.

On day 2 of the 3-day conference, delegates heard that investing in resilient public infrastructure can be a significant economic growth driver.

Public and private sector partnerships have been noted as a critical component for shared prosperity.  It was also revealed that trade negotiations with the United States have reached a sensitive.

KMF Drakensberg Inclusive Growth Forum 2025 Day 3 Livestream Link:https://t.co/rRcwW0ElbC

— Kgalema Motlanthe Foundation (@KMotlantheFDN) October 12, 2025

Experts at the Kgalema Motlanthe Inclusive Growth Forum have cautioned that Africa continues to lag behind in the adoption of artificial intelligence and machine learning. Public and private partnership is noted as critical to avert digital poverty and colonisation.

MTN CEO Ralph Mupita says South Africa will need stable and consistent electricity to create a robust digital economy.

“We need electricity in Africa in order to power the systems that are behind this generative AI and future forms of AI like artificial general intelligence and super intelligence, so the main thing is electricity.  We need to build more data centres and have fibreisation of the continent. We need about $100 billion of investment. The third thing is that our languages must come into those AI systems. The fourth is around digital skilling,” says Mupita.

Trade, Industry and Competition Minister Parks Tau says trade and bilateral negotiations with the United States are at a sensitive stage, with issues such as black economic empowerment and the alleged white genocide still to be dealt with.

“There are hot button issues chanting what the Americans would consider comfortable but of course it’s uncomfortable for us because it’s part of our history but there’s a chant that there’s been a particularly topical issue of course there’s issues of the so called genocide issues and therefore a need to allow mechanisms to allow Afrikaners to go to exile that we’d a have a Kenyan NGO coming to administer this process in SA so it’s a hot button issues but some of those issues we’re dealing with but on the trade side we’re beginning to make significant progress.,” says Trade, Industry and Competition Minister Parks Tau.

The increasing financialisation of healthcare and its impact on economic growth have come under the spotlight at the annual Kgalema Motlanthe Foundation Drakensberg Inclusive Growth Forum on Saturday. https://t.co/tIDM9zw3T3 pic.twitter.com/CzIiOKVtdS

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Chairperson of the Standing Committee on Appropriations, Mmusi Maimane, says the focus ahead of the tabling of the midterm budget should be to reduce debt and allocations towards the delivery of basic services for South Africans.

“Unemployment is sitting over  32% on a narrow definition of unemployment, so the only question on the table is how do you create jobs? So, one of the things I’ll be looking for is – where do we put foreign direct investment, and how do we attract it to counter the ballooning debt burden? The second issue is that for many people, there’s an inherent feeling that when you look at the budget of services like education, it becomes limited and ultimately ensures that South Africans live in a place where more people feel like the budget works for them rather than it is a protection of the elite,” says Maimane.

Former Finance Minister and Old Mutual Board Chair, Trevor Manuel, says high debt levels and the cost of capital continue to hold back the continent.

“One of the things that has happened with the cost of capital and debt servicing costs is that the bulk of countries on the continent spend more on debt service than they do on health and about 20% of countries spend more on debt service than they do on education so you don’t default against the bank but you default against the people,” says Manuel.

Speakers at the Forum emphasised the importance of resource mobilisation and stopping illicit financial flows as key development drivers.

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