ECA Sub-Region Office for Southern Africa has supported a two-day workshop to work with Zimbabwean experts to develop an action plan on alignment and harmonisation of regional and national frameworks on industrialisation in Zimbabwe
The action plan is being developed as part of support under the United Nations 12th Tranche project. It aims to accelerate industrial development and economic integration in Southern Africa by enhancing the capacity of regional member States to develop and implement harmonised natural-resource based industrialisation policies, frameworks and strategies. To anchor the development of action plans and the support to member States, SRO-SA commissioned an analytical study on Alignment and harmonisation of regional and national frameworks on Industrialisation, and National Domestication of Regional Strategies and Policies to support Industrial Development in Southern Africa, focusing on Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
Oliver Maponga, ECA economic affairs officer presented the overall objectives of the workshop which were to finalise the recommendations of the study and develop an implementation plan with specific deliverables and nominated champions. The experts reviewed the recommendations from the study and proposed an implementation plan to address gaps identified in the study.
The group work deliberated on five thematic areas in proposing a draft Implementation Plan. The challenges informing the development of the plan are:
- Partial implementation of reviewed Industrialisation oriented policies and strategies (IOPSs) and other supportive policy and legal frameworks;
- Limited information on value chains and the need to cooperate with key stakeholder and the need to carry out awareness raising and address infrastructural, institutional and financial constraints to add value and develop value chains, has resulted in weak cooperation among all key stakeholders.
- Weak collaborative working partnerships between government and relevant non-state actors stakeholders working on industrialisation;
- Reinforced research, development and innovation, education and training, skills development, standards; and
- Mobilise funding to address industrialisation constraints, mainly at IOPSs formulation and implementation; industrial development and production; and infrastructural development.
The prioritised Implementation Plan will be finalised by the Ministry of Industry and Commerce and submitted to UNECA for support under the UNDA 12th Tranche project.
