Dr. Soumana Sako, ACBF Executive Secretary.

During the second quarter of the year, specifically in March and April 2004, the Foundation organized two significant activities that provided additional impetus for its knowledge management program. The first was the First Annual Meeting of its knowledge networks, the six Technical Advisory Panels and Networks (TAP-NETs) that was held on March 25-26, 2004, while the second was the international workshop on Performance Measurement in Capacity Building. The workshop was held on April 27-28, 2004. Both activities had a common objective, and that was to take a step further the implementation of the Foundation’s knowledge management program for the year with a view to achieving the objective of transforming the Foundation into a knowledge-based institution in its competence areas within the period of its Strategic Medium Term Plan, 2002-2006.

The essence of the activities is to continue to contribute to the growth of intellectual capital on the African Continent, create opportunities for mutual learning with access to replicable best practices in capacity building and the management of social and economic policies and programs, and provide a basis for objectively verifiable systems for assessing performance of interventions in capacity building. The capacity building process in Africa must go beyond developing and strengthening skills and institutions and contribute to the emergence of knowledge-based economies on the Continent.

The pace of development of the Continent and thus the development gap that it faces is a reasonable reflection of the quality of economic, political, administrative and corporate governance, as well as the depth of the inequities in international trade and relations. This implies that considerably more efforts are needed to improve all aspects of governance systems and reform international trade practices. On the governance front, the Continent is raising its level of collective commitment to development. Until a country is prepared to collectively take responsibility for its own development, it will not be able to break the barrier that holds a majority of its people below the poverty line. A collective will is required for the Continent to deal decisively with corruption, design and implement effective and responsive development policies and programs, be disciplined and committed to the general good of the people, be open to new ideas and learning, and to take pride in its achievements, while facing up to challenges. To bridge the Continent’s development gap, the knowledge economy has a significant role to play. The Continent must invest substantially more resources to raise standards and sustain a high quality of education, as well as strengthen its ability to take advantage of new technologies, develop the culture of knowledge and information sharing, and be prepared to develop and actively support the emergence of organizations that can be regarded as learning organizations. We need learning organizations, if African economies are to emerge as knowledge economies. A learning organization, like a country, must place emphasis on the development, collation and sharing of knowledge and information for its growth. A new learning opens up an organization or a country to improvement opportunities, which in turn lead to transformation. If a new learning or an acquired knowledge does not provide a country with an opportunity for transformation then such knowledge is of no value. We need institutions and human resources that can sift through our development efforts and properly document ideas and practices that have worked or failed so that our countries can avoid making mistakes for which solutions already exist.

We need institutions that can tap global knowledge and assist African countries to apply it to local conditions – yet Africa cannot afford to be a passive user of information and knowledge created elsewhere, while seeking to resist the temptation of reinventing the wheel. We need institutions that further innovativeness and that can facilitate a regular flow and renewal of development management knowledge so that we are all on an even keel in the application of best practices and replicable success stories. We need institutions that can support the application of expert knowledge in domestic policy making as well as in program design, evaluation and international negotiations and trade. The inadequacy of such institutions has caused key policy agencies in many countries on the Continent to suffer in silence, while dissipating efforts to reinvent the wheel.

On the Continent, there is still a huge knowledge gap. A great deal more resources are needed to adequately capacitate applied research and skills development institutions and set up knowledge management centers in our institutions, so as to strengthen the culture of systematic documentation of what works and what does not. We need easily accessible knowledge warehouses for our own best practices and avoidable pitfalls in development policy management, as well as knowledge centers or networks that offer policy practitioners answers to questions or guides to best practices within the Continent or elsewhere on particular issues for which a policymaker needs support. We also need to step up the level of motivation in the effort to support continuous application of new learning and shared knowledge for our institutions to seize improvement opportunities and grow.

These are some of the numerous challenges that are associated with the knowledge gap that currently characterizes the Continent’s development process. It needs to be addressed, and the Continent is not too far away from solutions. The Foundation’s six TAP-NETs and other knowledge networks on the Continent represent an encouraging response to some of the challenges. The TAP-NETs are in the areas of: Economic Policy Analysis and Management; Financial Management and Accountability; Public Administration and Management; National Statistics; National Parliaments and Parliamentary Institutions; and the Professionalization of the Voices of the Private Sector and Civil Society. Policymakers and development managers on the Continent are encouraged to stand behind and work with them. These invaluable knowledge networks have to be nurtured and encouraged to bridge aspects of the knowledge gaps that I have just mentioned above. The TAP-NETs are knowledge resources for the Continent and are poised to provide a new phase and impetus to development policy management, given development challenges facing the Continent. The Foundation’s TAP-NETs are continental/global knowledge networks. These are formal networks with clear roles and responsibilities within the framework of the Foundation’s operations. They serve as a mechanism for harvesting best practices to strengthen the process by which interventions are made in capacity building, and in the design and management of social and economic policies and programs– what works and what does not. They also have the potential to mitigate the impact of brain drain on the Continent’s development efforts. The TAP-NETs are therefore a vital instrument in the Foundation’s operations and knowledge management tool kit. They also have a second dimension to their activities. Beyond the Foundation’s immediate operational needs, these knowledge networks are at the disposal of national governments, regional institutions and continental organizations like the African Union, initiatives like NEPAD, and fora for which specialized in-depth technical advice is required. They are therefore continental knowledge hubs and clearing houses. I wish to urge all countries, regional and continental organizations to take advantage of the knowledge products and services being offered by the TAP-NETs.

The global development environment is changing very rapidly and the direction of change is indeed very challenging for the African Continent. It is dawning on us somewhat warily that sub-Saharan Africa is sadly one region in the world that is unlikely to achieve a large number of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The Continent still faces enormous development constraints, although individual countries may make significant progress – with some attaining some of the MDGs and others lagging behind severely. Suffice it to say that we will need concerted efforts for the Continent to move forward in the decades ahead. To move forward decisively, we need capacity, which includes access to information and knowledge. Access to information and knowledge holds one of the keys for the Continent to unlock its potentials to bridge the development gap in relation to the rest of the world.