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Davos: Sipho Pityana for Africa

Chair of Business Unity and AngloGold Ashanti, Sipho Pityana.

Chair of Business Unity and AngloGold Ashanti, Sipho Pityana, has been given a thumping new responsibility by the World Economic Forum — to deliver on the Africa Growth Platform, which was launched at the World Economic Forum on Africa 2019 in Cape Town.

Sipho Pityana has been appointed co-chair of the World Economic Forum’s prestigious new Africa Regional Stewardship Board (RSB), which is a multi-stakeholder group that provides strategic advice to shape the forum’s regional programme in Africa.

But that’s not the half of it. Pityana said he hopes to build the group into a voice that can present particularly private sector perspectives into African continental issues, especially in relation to the African Union which is currently chaired by SA’s president Cyril Ramaphosa.

The Africa Regional Stewardship Board (RSB) is a multi-stakeholder group that includes continental leaders like government ministers, business leaders, leaders of regional organisations and civil society organisations.

In his formal comment on the appointment, he said:

“I look forward to working with like-minded stakeholders to achieve greater African economic integration while addressing environmental sustainability, governance and human capital shortcomings in Africa.”

The idea of the Africa Growth Platform is to address Africa’s job creation crisis by scaling-up SMEs and start-ups across the continent by 2025 by bringing together governments, investors and entrepreneurs to enhance funding prospects and create better enabling environments for business growth.

Pityana is a regular attendee at the World Economic Forum’s Davos functions and has been particularly prominent in the 2020 forum’s Africa-centric panel discussions.

In one of the panel discussions, he spoke enthusiastically about continental development and particularly the Africa Free Trade Agreement, saying Africa has a large population of young people and some of the fastest-growing economies of the world, but it faces headwinds including inequality and a lack of infrastructure.

“We need to think continentally, whether we think trade and investment or infrastructure.”

The continent’s borders are “too hard. They need to be softened”.

He said the developmental deficit in the continent is an opportunity to attract investment, so long as you can ensure a stable policy and regulatory environment — “we need to unleash the potential to drive growth and attract that investment”.

“Someone once said mosquitoes know no borders. We need to think about that when we invest in infrastructure in the African continent,” Pityana said. 

At a different function, he made the point that in the process of job creation, it shouldn’t be missed that you also need job creators. The development of job creators should be the focus of government endeavours rather than the passive process of creating jobs. DM

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