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Rumbidzayi Zinyuke Manicaland Bureau
Africa University (AU) has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Chief Executive Officers Africa Round-table to provide training programmes for company executives as part of measures to support the growth of advanced industries and expand Africa’s trade capacities.

Under the partnership, the university will lead research into gaps that exist in the growth of industry as well as the hosting of various collaborative conferences to tap into AU’s rich network of experts all over the continent.

Speaking at the signing ceremony on Tuesday, AU Vice Chancellor Professor Munashe Furusa the coming together of industry and the university would foster competitiveness and economic growth.

“We will come together to design programmes that create pathways for them to get various certifications they need, including degrees. This will also include graduate education training and continuing professional education adaptive and transformational leadership training programmes,” he said.

Prof Furusa said the MoU provides an integrated framework for operationalising creative collaborations between the university and industry in order to develop innovative approaches to economic growth and industry competitiveness.

“Africa University and CEO Africa Round-table are both international organisations with an abiding commitment to Africa’s socio-economic transformation so there is a commitment between our organisations to see Africa develop.

‘‘We both appreciate the fact that while Africa is well endowed with natural resources, it needs very innovative and robust initiatives to achieve economic development,” he said.

Speaking at the same event, CEO Africa Round-table chairman Mr Oswell Binha the organisation had identified a gap in African industries which they were trying to fill.

“It is one thing for African industries to produce products, but if the products are not pushed onto the global market, they will not perform.

‘‘We realised that we needed to create a platform around which chief executives and senior management teams in industry can get capacity building that is second to none. And we evaluated and found that AU is capable and has a very unique brand that supports our efforts to be able to make a difference in Africa at large,” he said.

He said there was need to come up with a structured framework, where our CEOs will pursue development programmes, to improve the level of decision making and enable industry to exploit the global regional and continental value chains.

CEO Roundtable chief executive Mr Kipson Gundai, said there was need for serious capacity building amongst both private and public sector decision makers.

He said implementation of the agreement should be done quickly to ensure that the first class will be underway when the CEO Africa Roundtable annual conference is held in Victoria Falls next year.