Courage & joint venture to sustain Africa's growth
03 Jun '06
3 min read
"Big companies can not create jobs, it is the small and medium ones that do," Gupta said. He also cautioned participants against neglecting rural populations in their commercial endeavours. Referring to them as "the bottom of the pyramid," Gupta said the constituency represented a large and significant economic sector that was willing to pay for services it received.
Under the theme "Going for Growth", participants highlighted particular achievements of this year's World Economic Forum on Africa (www.weforum.org/africa/outcomes). These include:
The signing of the Investment Climate Facility (ICF) to facilitate investment throughout the continent. The ICF was endorsed by the Africa Economic Summit and the G-8 in 2005, and was launched this week with US$ 100 million in funding.
The NEPAD e-Schools Initiative, whose demonstration project will fund e-access in 120 schools across 16 African countries by mid-2007.The Initiative aims to reach all 600,000 African schools within ten years.
The Forum's Global Health Initiative, which launched guidelines for large companies to support HIV and AIDS programmes within their supply chain, as well as employer-based malaria control programmes.
The Forum's Partnering Against Corruption Initiative, with 103 signatories representing US$ 500 billion turnover and which is now engaging the African business community in its efforts.
Future commitments made during the meeting include: The World Economic Forum's public-private partnership to strengthen healthcare systems in Africa, by addressing epidemic and pandemic diseases in particular. The partnership will be implemented at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2007 in Davos.
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