The Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA) and the University of South Africa (Unisa) on Wednesday signed a service contract and partnership agreement to undertake projects to develop a database of African expertise and develop a conceptual framework for creating African Centres of Excellence, as identified under the Nepad programme of action.

As a catalyst to drive this initiative the DBSA earlier initiated a pilot programme, Knowledge Management Africa (KMA), whose main objective is to facilitate the harnessing of knowledge to improve development outcomes in Africa in the social, economic and cultural spheres.

The KMA is an initiative to harness African knowledge, skills and competencies to address African challenges, such as poverty, unemployment and inequality explained DBSA executive manager of research and information Dr Snowy Khoza on the sidelines of the conference.

“We are calling on other stakeholders in the wider development arena to contribute towards the fulfilment of this vision. We believe that Africa should not be left out of the knowledge revolution, and the benefits this brings to the economic and social development of our people,” said Khoza.

Khoza explained that the African continent had been grouped into five regions, including east, south, central, west and north to facilitate a database of African expertise.

Data collectors in the various regions would tackle different topics, such as science and technology, but would work in integration with each other to avoid duplication.

“The southern region will be driven by South Africa, the western by Senegal, the Eastern by Kenya and we have not identified anyone yet to drive the process in the northern region,” Khoza noted.

It was hoped that Ciro would host the process in the northern region.

The Centre for African Renaissance Studies, at Unisa had been identified as the lead agent to implement the project in South Africa.

The DBSA anticipated roping in masters and PhD students from various tertiary institutions to participate in the initiative.

Witnessing the signing Kenyan Minister of planning and national development Henry Obwocha said that his government was ready to host the KMA conference scheduled to take place from the July 17 to19 , in Nairobi, Kenya.

“The government has taken over the preparations for the conference, including aspects of security,” he said.

The conference would be the second one to date, with South Africa having hosted the first.