THE World Economic Forum (WEF) on Africa is one of several gatherings at which Africa’s fortunes are debated.
Last week’s event in Kigali may have suffered a little from competition with next week’s annual meeting of the African Development Bank in Lusaka, where most of the continent’s finance ministers will be present, as will delegations from many of its private sector banks including SA’s.
For SA, the WEF may, ironically, have become less important for business people — and for a welcome reason. Thanks to the closer ties that business and government have forged in an effort to boost SA’s economic growth rate and avert a ratings downgrade, business people may have less need to use the WEF to access senior government leadership in an informal setting.
But it was the global WEF in Davos in January that provided the excuse for the partnership that government and business have now formed.
While last week’s WEF in Africa did not seem to attract quite the top tier of business from SA, it still managed to draw 1,200 business, government, labour, academic and civil society leaders together, including several African heads of state — in small but fast-growing Rwanda, which hosted the forum.
It still provides a platform for leaders, think-tanks and others to punt ideas about how to fix Africa’s problems and leverage its successes. READ MORE