The third edition of the International Conference on the Emergence of Africa (ICEA III) convened more than 1000  decision-makers and experts from around fifty countries around the world including : leaders of international and African institutions, eminent personalities from the private sector, academia, experts and representatives of civil society under the theme “Emergence, the Private Sector and Inclusiveness”.
The conference featured a high-level session bringing together heads of state and government, heads of institutions, and business leaders, highlighted six major underlying themes the issue of the conference. These are:
• promote stability, both politically and securely, but also maintain the long-term strategy of emergence;
• Mobilize internal resources and encourage foreign direct investment (FDI) in strategic sectors with technology transfer;
• Develop human capital with special access to training-employment adequacy;
• Establish a network of local SMEs / SMIs through better access to financing and better consideration of local content in development projects;
• Broaden the size of African markets through country connectivity infrastructure and business development reforms and;
• Initiate a sustainable industrialization dynamic for a better valuation of raw materials.
These themes were further explored in discussions in plenary sessions and parallel panels that provided answers to questions relating to the promotion of the private sector as a driver of emergence, and of inclusiveness, a guarantee of the sustainability of emergence.
CSEA senior research fellow, Dr. Grace Onubedo participated in this high-level meeting which was held from 17 to 19 January 2019, at the Abdou Diouf International Conference Center in Diamniadio, Senegal.