7th ARB Meeting: Interrogating Governance and Prosperity in Africa

Theme:   Interrogating Governance and Prosperity in Africa
Date:      November 11 - 14, 2009
Venue:    Arusha Tanzania

Background

Founded in 2001, IREN has organized over 72 high profile forums and hosted over 4,500 delegates from across the globe with varied professional background. These have included high school and university students, farmers, civil society leaders, journalists, policy makers and business leaders who met to discuss issues focused on Africa’s economic development.

The economic and governance crisis in Africa has been blamed on colonialism, poor institutions and bad leadership. Africa’s founding fathers are blamed for having adopted a ‘forgive and forget policy’ as opposed to focusing on restitution. African challenges have also been blamed on questionable measurement benchmarks, ethnic clashes and lack of indigenization of the African economy.The 7th ARB meeting will address the theme “Interrogating Governance and Prosperity in Africa” by seeking to answer the following fundamental questions:-

1. How has political leadership in Africa affected governance and prosperity on the continent?
2. What role has foreign countries played in the governance and prosperity dilemma facing Africa?
3. Do we need new institutional structures to better govern African countries?
4. Are Africans doing enough to build their own governance and prosperity structures?
5. What standards of measurement should Africa adopt in its quest for better governance and prosperity?

IREN invites scholars, politicians, policy makers, civil society members and business leaders among others to the 7th African Resource Bank Meeting to brainstorm on the above theme.

For details contact [email protected] cc [email protected] or call +254 20 2731497, Fax +254 20 2723258

3rd IREN Eastern Africa High School Debate

The IREN Eastern Africa High School Debate provides a forum for high school students from East Africa to apply basic economic principles to topical policy issues. The program aims at inculcating a culture of entrepreneurship and business thinking among youth from an early age and to promote Kiswahili as the business language in East Africa.

Previous themes covered include; The Effects of Corruption, Privatization and New Technology on a Nation’s Economy and The benefits and challenges facing the East Africa Cooperation and how to enhance this cooperation. This year’s theme is ‘Save to invest and grow the economy.’ From 2006, over 65 schools and 400 essay entries have been submitted for competition from Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda.

For more details, email [email protected]

IREN Intra- East Africa Farmer Exchange

The regional food shortage puts  to test the ability of the government to plan and ensure food  security for its citizenry. Can farmers exchange ideas on value addition, profitability and independence from food aid?
The Inter Region Economic Network is proud to launch an East Africa farmer exchange program. Phase 1 of this program will target farmers from East, West and Central Kenya.

 For more details, email [email protected]