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Towards the Pan African Competitiveness Forum

As part of the celebration of the Carl Linnaeus 300 year anniversary The Competitiveness Institute - TCI has been co-organizer of the Pan-African Innovation and Cluster Competitiveness Symposium in Cape Town, September 17-18. The aim was to enhance the efficiency of social economic activities financed by aid organizations, with business on commercial conditions. At the symposium representatives from 10 African countries as well as the African Union attended and discussed actions needed encourage new initiatives on cluster initiatives for poverty reduction and regional developments.

As part of the celebration of the Carl Linnaeus Tercentenary Jubilee, the Linnaeus Week in Cape Town, September 17-18, TCI organized a symposium on how to include business on commercial conditions, but could be supplemented by directed social economic activities partly financed by aid organizations such as education, gender aspects, broad environmental considerations, infrastructure development, tree plantation, etc.

To overcome poverty there is today a general understanding that a competitive industry is the only sustainable source of income to a country. To build a nation’s industry is preferably done by increasing trade, but also in programmes subsidized by aid organizations.

The Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness refers to the ambition among donor organizations around the world, to coordinate their activities to enhance the results for the targeted countries.

At the ninth Annual Global Conference of TCI in Lyon France, October 2006, and more recently at a meeting in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, April 2007, stakeholders involved with cluster-competitiveness initiatives in Africa, agreed that there is a need to improve on existing initiatives and encourage new initiatives on cluster initiatives for poverty reduction and regional development.

The Pan-African Competitiveness Forum (PACF) was formed to provide a platform for collaboration on exchange of experiences and learning on innovation and cluster-based competitiveness initiatives. The aim is to increase the awareness of how cluster initiatives impact positively on economic growth in African countries.

The aim is to within two years make PACF positioned as the continent-wide competence and action center for cluster-competitiveness approaches to national and regional economic development. The objective is to showcase good practices, facilitate learning and leverage mainstreaming of innovation and cluster-based competitiveness initiatives in future business and private sector development policies and strategies in Africa.

One outcome will be a design of a pilot project, which would facilitate coordination among the Swedish actors in order to enhance the effectiveness and the efficiency of their activities in South Africa.
The symposium is organized in cooperation with the Swedish Governmental Agency for Innovation Systems (VINNOVA), Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs, the Department for Research Cooperation (SAREC) at Swedish Agency for International Development Cooperation (Sida), The Swedish Trade Council, and the Embassy of Sweden in Pretoria, South Africa.

Delegates from 25 African countries participated: Uganda, Tanzania, Ghana, South Africa, Ethiopia, Mauritius, Nigeria, Mozambique, Botswana and Namibia, as well as representatives from African Union.

There have also been representatives from United States Agency for International Development – USAid, Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit – GTZ (German Technical Development Cooperation), Danish International Development Agency and World Bank.

An extensive report is in preparation - for a first look at the results open the attached report of the symposium .
For more information, contact TCI Africa Commissioner, Mr. Thomas Winther (tw@innogate.net, +45 28762121, +233 244333137)