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The intricacies of taking development initiatives in Africa will be highlighted in the Mozambican capital from June 2 to 4 when business and political decision-makers meet for the 14th annual World Economic Forum (WEF) Africa Economic Summit.

Mining, construction, energy, health, agricultural business and financial services sectors in Africa will feature at "a platform for frank and honest public, private sector dialogue", WEF organisers have promised.

In 2002, participants at the summit endorsed the newly conceptualised New Partnership for Africa's Development (Nepad), the continent's self-help, economic and political recovery plan.

Last year, it agreed to an African peer review mechanism for codes of conduct in areas such as corporate governance and corruption (which is widespread in Africa) in the context of Nepad.

We would like to push to speed up the process of business engagement in the process of NEPAD. Two years ago, business endorsed the programme. Last year, they outlined its action plans and formed task groups," WEF Africa director Haiko Alfeld told Deutsche Presse- Agentur dpa in an interview yesterday.

This year, more than 600 delegates from 46 countries, including 28 African ones, will meet in Maputo to discuss development under the motto: "Engaging Business in Development" on a continent where doing business can be risky, frustrating and disastrous.

"We've now for the last two years worked on engaging business in support of the Nepad and what now strikes us as being important is to actually show that Nepad is bearing fruit," he said.

Examples of cross-border initiatives in water, conservation and construction will also be highlighted, Alfeld said.

The summit host nation will showcase "real Nepad initiatives in motion" -its harbour development and the Mozal project, an aluminium smelter that has attracted investment, jobs and had other positive effects.

Cross-border conservation parks, initiatives that span several African countries and under joint management plus other successful public, private partnerships will also be reviewed.

Mobile telephone service provider MTN will also share its experiences in successfully overcoming "enormous barriers, security risk and infrastructure management problems" in Nigeria, he said.

But the aim was not to "dwell on celebrating success", Alfeld said, adding, "we want to address the bottlenecks and reaffirm the commitment to Nepad and speed up the implementation of initiatives."

He pointed out: "What we do hope is that there'll be a renewed sense of common purpose from business and politics."

Also on the agenda is the lack of direct foreign investment as it is a critical factor in determining the course of development on a continent where governments lack the capacity to do things, Alfeld noted.

The Nepad Business Initiative will outline its plan also. "They will be showing that they've moved beyond declaration of intent to actually showing action," Alfeld said.

The grouping of 350 companies from or with interests in Africa is headed by South African Reuel Khoza, who has expressed the desire to see good governance in Africa rewarded, according to the Nepad peer review mechanism.

Delegates would also discuss attempts to "make Africa conducive to foreign direct investment," according to Khoza. He told journalists that the mechanism should function along the same lines as ratings' agencies leading to both sanctions and rewards.

Barriers to doing business in the mineral rich Democratic Republic of Congo will also be scrutinized. Chaotic Zimbabwe will also feature in a special session while China as an investor in Africa will be another issue on the agenda.

The release of the latest WEF Africa Competitiveness Report is expected at the summit also. Last year, diamond rich Botswana ranked highest and several new initiatives are expected to be agreed over the three days.

Ultimately, the summit would indicate a shift from simply listing challenges to developing the kind of public, private interface for realizing Africa's potential, Alfeld said. - Sapa-DPA

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