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Policy Program > Highlights

Business Summit Acknowledges Role of Private Sector

The business community of the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) had an opportunity to interact with their public sector counterparts, mostly Ministers of Trade at the COMESA Business Summit and Exhibition held in Kigali, Rwanda on May 30-31, 2005. This was the second such Business Summit, the first one having been held in Kampala, Uganda, in December 2004. The Business Summit was particularly significant because it took place alongside meetings of the Council of Ministers and Heads of State and Government of COMESA which are the highest policy making organs of this regional body, symbolising a new commitment and a new way of doing business.

The Summit was characterized by a frank and serious exchange of ideas and possible solutions to promoting investment into the region and enhancing the competitiveness of the region which was the theme for the Summit. Among the key resolutions of the Business Summit was the need to strengthen what was termed, "informed public-private partnerships" based on addressing practical issues that faced the business community in the region.

In this regard, the emergence of industry associations in specific sectors of the regional economy was seen as a positive development that would help to move the policy agenda from the general to the specific and ensure that dialogue and advocacy for policy change would lead to demonstrable positive results. Region-wide industry associations, driven by the private sector, have been established in coffee (Eastern and Southern African Fine Coffees Association - EAFCA); dairy (Eastern and Southern African Dairy Association - ESADA); cotton and textiles (African Cotton and Textile Industry Federation - ACTIF). These associations, formed with initial technical support from the USAID-funded Regional Agricultural Trade Expansion Support (RATES) program, were seen as key ingredients in enabling the private sector to provide input not only in the formulation of regional trade and investment policies but also in multilateral negotiations under the WTO and EU-ACP and enabling the public and private sectors in the region to move in tandem on an informed basis.