Recap
The Africa edition convened in Pretoria under the theme "Accelerating productivity, job creation, and growth for business enterprises in South Africa," co-organized by the World Bank Group Institute for Economic Development, the Growth Academy, and the African Union Development Agency (AUDA-NEPAD), with support from Japan’s Ministry of Finance through the Knowledge for Change Program.
Sessions moved from the middle-income trap to the specifics of South African firm dynamics: how to create jobs at scale, where productivity growth comes from, and which infrastructure and innovation reforms drive it. Speakers included Indermit Gill and Ufuk Akcigit alongside Jakkie Cilliers of the Institute for Security Studies, Tetsushi Sonobe of the Japanese Association for Development Economics, and panelists from Statistics South Africa, the National Treasury, the CSIR, and the Centre for Development and Enterprise.
Full event page ↗
