Highway Africa News Agency

Information is a public good that provides accurate signals for investors, enhances the public private partnerships needed to move an economy toward greater prosperity and brings transparency to the dialogue between civil society concerns and private sector motives. It is a public good that, in the context of Africa is unfortunately insufficient.

The United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO) and Microsoft Corporation have partnered to address this shortcoming in a project which establishes a data platform that allows monitoring of the performance, perceptions, intentions and expectations of enterprises and measurement of investor response to policy initiatives. It combines UNIDO's enterprise surveys and capacity building programmes with Microsoft Technology solutions to provide an information tool for both policy makers and private sector decision makers.

Presenting an Investment Monitoring and Governance Platform at the ICT Best Practices Forum for West and Central Africa in Burkina Faso, Director General of UNIDO Dr. Kandeh K. Yumkella told delegates that ?The platform links policy makers and intermediary institutions in the countries with the private sector and civil society through an interactive face. It also provides a mechanism for the users to conduct their own search and analysis, compare some of their performances parameters,? he said.

He explained that on the platform government authorities can formulate reports, test strategies and options and use empirical evidence to demonstrate the benefits of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and domestic private investment, they will secure broader political support for a continuous investment governance reform process to support private sector driven development.

Private investors will also benefit from a more open and transparent public private interface that brings predictability to reform processes and business scenarios. The integration of various online tools enables firms to carry out comparative analysis of different investment locations and comparison of the actual operating performance of enterprises in different countries to facilitate the identification of new and emerging market opportunities.

The data will also produce indicators that allow country ranking in terms of governance parameters, compilation of forward looking indices such as future investment flow, employment growth, capacity utilisation, skills gaps etc. These indicators will bring more transparency to the African business landscapes and reduce risk premiums of investors.

At the core of UNIDOs development strategy is the creation of wealth through investment - investment to expand productive capabilities, to enhance competitiveness and to introduce clean and energy efficient technologies.

Private Investment is a decision process that requires accurate and timely information. Assessment market conditions, business opportunities and the investment climate depend on accurate and timely information. In the absence of that precondition, risk perception increases and inhibits investment.

Investment quality in a country is determined by many factors, from the level and quality of infrastructure to market size. The factors that can be directly influenced by national authorities are the quality of governance reflected in policy, regulatory and legal frameworks and their investor services also depends on the availability of comprehensive information. Developing countries need a means to monitor investment flow and trends and the impact of different investors on key economic indicators to be able to craft the right combination of interventions.

As part of the activities of this network three surveys of foreign investors were conducted and the programme to establish the platform.

The objective of the programme are not only to increase the flow of investment in the manufacturing and service sectors into Africa but to increase the quality and impact of foreign investment, sustaining the upgrading of local enterprises, supply chain and global value chain in development, better access to finance for local enterprises.

The programme has an overall budget of 20 million Euros over a period of three years.

One of the crucial issues will be developing and implementing an appropriate incentive based mechanism to ensure that each of the stakeholders, the Governments, the local institutions, the private sector, will commit to maintain and enrich the platform so as to establish a virtuous dialogue sustaining a continuous reform process.