Key Issues
For more than two years, UNCTAD and Royal Philips Electronics of the Netherlands have been engaged in a public-private partnership to explore the possibilities of and prerequisites for establishing an energy-saving light-bulb industry in the Southern African Development Community: the Amandla project.
This project is a practical follow-up to the intergovernmental review of the electrical and electronic sector at UNCTAD's Expert Meeting on Dynamic and New Sectors of World Trade that was held in October 2005.
The project aims to:
- Strengthen cooperation among southern African countries by creating competitive supply and export capacities of energy-saving light-bulbs
- Promote an energy-saving policy in the region to meet the challenge of rising energy costs and achieving energy security
- Improve environmental sustainability by reducing greenhouse gas emissions
Purpose of the event
The Amandla project will be featured as a potentially viable business opportunity in the Southern African Development Community with positive multiplier effects on industry, energy, trade and the environment.
The following issues will be addressed:
- The economic viability of creating a new and dynamic productive sector in Africa
- Policy measures which governments should be prepared to adopt in order to attract foreign direct investment and facilitate the creation of new supply and export capacities in more value added and technologically advanced industrial sectors. National economic and industrial policy, and national and regional trade policy will be discussed in this context
- Ways in which developed countries and developing countries, as well as their businesses, can assist in building new supply and export capacities in Africa, especially in dynamic and new sectors of world trade
- Lessons to be drawn from the Amandla project
During this event Royal Philips will display a number of its corporate social responsibility products.
Speakers
The representatives of Royal Philips and UNCTAD will provide an update on the Amandla project. It is expected that senior government officials of the Netherlands, Lesotho and South Africa will be among the speakers.
Expected outcome
The purpose of this side event is to consider the roles of government and the private sector in creating dynamic and new trade sectors in Africa and to identify the role of government policies, including investment and trade policies, in attracting foreign direct investment and modern technologies to start up new manufacturing industries in Africa.