The 3rd EU-Africa Business Forum - September 28-29, 2009, Nairobi, Kenya.

This event is organized with the support of the European Commission, the African Union Commission and active members of the Forum.

EU-AFRICA BUSINESS FORUM, ACCRA/GHANA, 21-22 June 2007

The Second EU-Africa Business Forum took place at the International Conference Centre in Accra, Ghana, on 21-22 June, 2007. This is an annual event, jointly conceived by the African Union Commission and the European Commission. The purpose is to improve the business climate in Africa and promote investment. The EC was in charge of organising the first Forum held in Brussels on 16-17 November, 2006 and the AUC handled the organisation of the second with some additional assistance from the EC-funded BizClim programme.

The second Forum was co-chaired by Dr. Vincent Maphai, Chairman of BHP Billiton South Africa and Richard Morgan, Head of Corporate Relations for Africa, Middle East & Turkey, Unilever. The African Union Commission and the European Commission were represented respectively by Dr. Maxwell Mkwezalamba, Commissioner for Economic Affairs and by Louis Michel, Commissioner for Development and Humanitarian Aid.

The Forum was attended by African and European business leaders representing multi-nationals, large corporations, small and medium-scale enterprises and confederations, multilateral and regional institutions.

Discussion topics

The second Forum examined progress achieved in respect of the recommendations of the first Forum with a view to addressing any identified bottlenecks as well as the following three topics, all of which are key to the enhancement of business development in Africa:

Interconnectivity – covering all infrastructure required for the efficient functioning of business and reducing transaction costs or the cost of doing business; two separate discussion papers treated classic infrastructure issues and ICT questions;
Trade issues and regional integration – covering all aspects, including standards and quality of products, tariff and non-tariff barriers, trade facilitation as well as means of addressing these issues; and
Entrepreneurship – covering the main aspects of business creation and development, entrepreneurship development, corporate governance and corporate social responsibility, vocational training, investment issues, to name a few.

At the end of the Second EU-Africa Business Forum, participants came up with a private sector declaration as well as a set of recommendations on ways of improving Africa’s business climate.

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