Focus turns to business

Kampala

African investors and top business officials will be meeting today, ahead of the heads of state meeting at the 15th African Union summit, scheduled to open on Sunday, to discuss development challenges affecting the continent.

The meeting dubbed the African Private Sector Forum, is expected to discuss and come up with new ways of creating business opportunities across the continent. The forum will be concluded with a presidential roundtable conference to be hosted by President Museveni on July 25.

According to the Director for Economic Affairs at the African Union Commission, Dr Rene N’Guettia Kouassi, Africa offers huge opportunities for investment, which can translate into fast growth of African economies and employment opportunities for citizens but much of this potential has not been exploited.

Dr Kouassi explained that there is need to invest in infrastructure, especially roads, if Africa is to realise growth. He said health, agriculture and climate change challenges will also be discussed by the private sector.

Achieving MDGs
“We realise that the private sector will play a key role in helping us achieve our millennium development gaols,” he said. Mr Patrick Bitature, the Uganda Investment Authority chairman, said there are still several challenges facing Africa especially in the wake of last year’s global economic crisis that was triggered by the meltdown in financial markets.

“Most African countries have been dependent on external aid and as a result of the global crisis, many of the big donors have cut funding to Africa and that’s why we want to look around and see how we can solve our own problems,” Mr Bitature said.

“We also need our own home-grown solutions but largely, we should have a clear roadmap on how we intend to address the general challenges of development on the continent.” This forum will precede another conference later in November organised by the AU in partnership with the European Union. “Europe and Africa have not been benefiting from the closeness of the two continents so we hope we can also harness that relationship so that we also benefit from the global development programmes,” said Dr Kouassi.