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Kampala Forum a golden chance
2007-08-25 09:07:41
By Editor
The Ugandan capital Kampala promises to be especially busy from November 20 through 22 this year, as it hosts the first Commonwealth Business Forum ever to take place in East Africa.
Among the Forum partners are Standard Chartered and Stanbic Bank, while those sponsoring it include Coca-Cola, East African Development Bank and Celtel.
Also supporting it are the likes of Tanga Cement, Shell and Unilever.
The organisers are yet to release a full programme on the historic event but the few details made available through the media suggest that it will be a forum well worth taking part in.
For instance, they talk of a whole 100 prominent speakers tackling ten themes “unleashing the untapped potential of the Commonwealth”.
Those lined up to make presentations include three African Heads of State, African Development Bank President Donald Kabaruka, Coca-Cola Africa President Alexander Cummings, AngloGold Ashanti CEO Bobby Godsell, Barclays Bank Vice Chairman Gary Hoffman, and Bajaj Auto Ltd Chairman Rahul Bajaj.
Tanzania is a member of the Commonwealth and has very close business and other links of mutual benefit with all these institutions.
It should therefore find the Kampala event a golden opportunity through which to assert herself further as a developing economy with much that the rest of the Club – and the world – could learn from as it also learns from the other countries and corporate bodies represented.
We are informed that some of the topics to be addressed at the three-day event will revolve around the modalities of making globalisation work for humankind, ways to meaningfully transform the global economy through the promotion of public-private partnerships, and strategies with which to confront the triple crises of climate change, energy demand and resource depletion.
There will also be carefully picked experts to deliberate on how corporate social responsibility can support sustainable development, keeping abreast with developments in the ICT world, how global trade? can lead to either progress or peril, how emerging markets can strengthen their investment climate, and how the private sector can boost education.
Although it would be inadvisable to belittle the significance or relevance of any of these issues, a decent amount of Tanzania’s attention should be drawn to the fact that the Forum will have sessions set aside for discussions on how to promote East Africa as a place to do business.
This would be understandable, particularly at this moment in time when Tanzania, Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda are making frantic efforts to knock into finer shape the expanded East African Community of which they are the partner states.
The Forum`s organisers see it as a rare opportunity that will enable Heads of State, Government ministers, CEOs and other industry leaders to focus on East Africa as an investment and trade destination within the Club.
They say national, regional and international businesses could use it to contribute to development policies able to change the face of business in East Africa.
We fully concur, hoping all concerned will seize the notable opportunity and make that happen.
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