A Decade of NEPAD - Economic Commission for Africa - uneca

48 A Decade of NEPAD: Deepening African Private Sector and Civil Society Ownership and Partnership
2009 AFRICAN BUSINESS TOP 500 – AGRO INDUSTRY COMPANIES
RANK IN 500 COMPANY COUNTRY TURNOVER US ($bn)
17 SAPPI SOUTH AFRICA $5.30
29 SAB MILLER SOUTH AFRICA SOUTH AFRICA $3.96
53 TIGER BRANDS SOUTH AFRICA $2.40
66 PIONEER FOODS GROUP SOUTH AFRICA $1.73
71 ALTADIS MAROC MOROCCO $1.58
74 CEVITAL ALGERIA $1.55
100 DISTELL GROUP SOUTH AFRICA $1.18
102 AFGRI SOUTH AFRICA $1.15
116 ILLOVO SUGAR SOUTH AFRICA $1.01
119 NIGERIAN BREWERIES NIGERIA $0.96
What is missing in Africa, even in South Africa, whose
economy comprises 40% of the African economy, is a
robust and dynamic tier of medium sized enterprises. The
10% of the private sector represented by Africa’s transnationals
easily account for nearly 50% of gross domestic
production. Supporting private sector enterprise growth
and development is where the opportunity – and greatest
challenges lie.
An additional component of the African private sector that
has historically been being under resourced and lacking
adequate capacity is the sector comprised of organized
business bodies on the continent. However, in the past
fifteen years, significant effort has been undertaken to
strengthen African chambers of commerce, and also African
trade, sector and professional associations.
The efforts begun in the late 1980s to promote private sector
involvement in economic development, also suggested that
in addition to adhoc and informal consultations between
private sector and government, there should be formal
mechanisms for engagement that offered membership in
economic and social councils.
While some countries embraced this concept and established
designated forums to help foster public-private
dialogue and partnership, (including Ghana, Botswana,
Senegal, Malawi and Tanzania) most African countries
have not instituted such structures nor consistently worked
to include their private sectors in their economic decision
making programmes.
Yet, organized business across Africa is continuing to grow,
and beyond just national structures, increasingly, regional
structures (often aligned with the regional economic communities)
are forming to ensure that African private sector
voices are heard as policies are developed and their related
interests are taken into consideration during deliberation
about economic policy and programmes.
Furthermore, a few business structure are also aligning
national apex organs to be able to develop a coherent pan-
African voice to engage with organs such as the African
Union and NEPAD and to interface with bilateral business
groups such as the U.S.’ Corporate Council on Africa and
France’s CIAN.
In November 2008, the UN Economic Commission for
Africa helped facilitate the All African Chambers of Commerce
Conference, a continental gathering of national apex
chambers of commerce from the Democratic Republic of
Congo, Ethiopia, Ghana, Libya, Nigeria, South Africa and
Tanzania (and representatives of chambers from Burkina
Faso, Burundi, Kenya, Lesotho, Madagascar, Mozambique,
Sierra Leone, Sudan, Swaziland, Uganda and Zimbabwe)
under the theme “Private Sector: A Venue for African
Renaissance”.
The aim of the conference was to see how best to resuscitate
the Federation of African Chambers of Commerce and
Industry, Agriculture and Professions organ that had been
established in Egypt in 2005, but which was effectively
moribund having never convened a formal annual general
meeting nor engaged in any operating programmes. The
aim of this meeting was to develop an organ that would
serve as “one platform, one voice, and one vision of the
African national chambers”. The African Union along with
the UNECA participated in the conference as observers.