Business Dialogue

Last week’s Smart Partnership Dialogue at Mulungushi International Conference Centre effectively ran for one full week if we are to take the pre-Dialogue Rehearsals, Dialogue Resource Group meetings, and Secretariat work into account.

The turn out was quite overwhelming and accounted for between 400 and 500 participants. There was a lot of documentation handed out and many presentations were made to the participants ranging from our own Vice President and his colleague, the President of Uganda, to youth representatives from the region. Former Presidents, Prime Ministers, and Cabinet Ministers from several African countries put their views forward for dialogue and exchange of views on social and economic development.

Each successive day of the Dialogue was more challenging than the previous day and the pace was very fast. Many good ideas were shared and many hopes and aspirations were articulated for the betterment of the continent.

Some leaders were clear about their expectations and roles in achieving those expectations. President Yoweri Museveni was clear that Africa must desist from continuous discussions and move into gear to starting to take deliberate and decisive action. He highlighted that Africa cannot continue to boast of peaceful countries or democratic governance structures whilst her people continued to wallow in poverty. It was time to ‘manage’ the ‘talking’ and ‘engage’ the ‘doing’ with clear vision and purpose.

Several former Presidents echoed President Museveni’s sentiments and challenged the Dialogue Participants to be more pro-active and take ownership of their development programs such that their full commitment and investment would be summoned in order to realize the national social and economic agendas of the various countries.

What do we conclude as the effect of the Smart Partnership Dialogue on Zambia’s development agenda?

Clearly one positive effect is that we had one more large gathering of Government officials, some members of the private sector and some social sector NGO’s sitting in one room and discussing issues of national concern.

A hurdle that is always difficult to overcome, and was not successfully overcome at the Dialogue, was that of each participant wearing a particular ‘hat’ and failing to remove it and speak as an individual and citizen of Africa. This hurdle resulted in many contributions remaining in the same spirit of a conference or seminar with the hierarchies firmly in place although not verbalized.

Another positive effect is that of sharing experiences amongst countries so that lessons learned by one country could benefit another country. On the other hand, very few countries shared their mistakes where the more important and bitter lessons are learned. One or two bold current Heads of State were open to sharing their bad experiences in an effort to warn their brothers and sisters in other countries of the impending dangers and costs of making similar mistakes.

Private sector issues were raised quite effectively and some good documentation was circulated to ensure that the Participants appreciated the issues put on the Dialogue table. The difficulty was that the Dialogue reflected a very small percentage of private sector from the region and an even smaller representation from Zambia, the host country. This was not the intention of the Smart Partnership Dialogue mission therefore we must re-assess the mechanisms for engaging the private sector in preparations for future Smart Partnership Dialogues.

The Dialogue days were long and the Dialogue pace was aggressive. On the last day, a tour of the Zambia Agriculture and Commercial Show was made by Participants during a morning session. This visit to the Show was the first Participant to Business contact in an open free dialogue manner. Unfortunately, this type of contact is often too overwhelming in too short a time, so we cannot expect too much to come out of it.

Opportunities for refocusing the Smart Partnership Dialogue to include much more private sector participation need to be explored. Options for restructuring the format of the Dialogue to include several visits to business, industrial, agriculture, tourism, mining, and service sector investments need to be explored to provide a healthy mix of dialogue and productive action. Some possibilities of establishing new dialogue and engagement programs amongst the various stakeholders in each economy can be developed and concretized through the signing of Memorandums of Collaboration in an effort to ensure the establishment and continuity of new Smart Partnerships at a domestic and regional level.

Uganda is set for the 2009 Smart Partnership Dialogue thanks to the established Smart Partnership between President Museveni and the Dialogue Management Team. Hopefully, Uganda will improve on the Zambia experience and above all, get its Private Sector to participate in the dialogue overwhelmingly and effectively. In addition, we hope that Uganda will clearly map out what the role and goals of the Smart Partnership Dialogue will be in promoting the development of the nation for Ugandans.

The positive impact of Smart Partnerships does not happen by mistake. It is a well calculated and strategized mechanism that must deliver the outcomes that it will have been programmed for. Zambia must be very clear about what we want to get out of the next Dialogue in Uganda. We must spend some long hours planning and acting to ensure that we will achieve our goals. If we do not apply our minds to this basic fact, then going to Uganda will be wasting the tax payer’s money and our own resources for no good reason.

Published 5 August 2008