The Pan African Competitiveness Forum (PACF)

Written 07.10.2008 07:20 by Franziska Blunck Print Send article

The Pan African Competitiveness Forum (PACF) is a new continent-wide competence and action centre for innovation and cluster based competitiveness approaches to national and regional economic development in Africa.

To Light 1,000 Cluster Fires across Africa by 2010

PACF was officially launched at the 1st Pan African Competitiveness Forum organized in April 2008 in Addis Ababa. TCI has been involved in this initiative from the very beginning, bringing together stakeholders from different African countries and backgrounds at TCI annual conferences and supporting directly or through our members several regional activities.

The PACF Council is now formed by representatives from 22 African countries and some international experts including representatives from TCI, while the Pan African Competitiveness Forum gathers around 200 stakeholders involved in cluster and competitiveness initiatives.

PACF will support stakeholders in responding more effectively to the unique challenges and opportunities that Africa faces in global competition. In particular PACF will enable African stakeholders to promote innovation, value addition and competitiveness initiatives.

The main objectives of PACF therefore are:

To stimulate Africa's competitiveness through enhanced innovation and cluster based competitiveness initiatives.
To facilitate mainstreaming of innovation and cluster-based competitiveness initiatives in national, regional and continental business development policies, strategies and programmes.
To promote continental and global collaboration and partnerships in the development of Cluster Initiatives.
To provide a platform for knowledge sharing and the building up and expansion of the knowledge base on clusters and cluster based development initiatives in Africa.

Several regional projects are already ongoing as PACF is divided into 5 regional chapters (PACF East Africa, PACF ECOWAS, PACF Southern Africa, PACF Northern Africa, PACF Central Africa) and a continent wide competitition of cluster initiatives is in preparation to achieve the goal of lightning the 1000 cluster fires over Africa.

If you are interested to learn more about the PACF, please contact the Chairman of the PACF Council Prof. Barnabas Nawangwe dean @ tech.mak.ac.ug or the Chairman of the Executive Board Prof. Burton Mwamila mwamila @ udsm.ac.tz . From TCI side you can contact Franziska Blunck fblunck @ competitiveness.org .