The Conference with the main theme as: Accelerating Industrialisation in Africa: Implications for Job Creation and Poverty Alleviation was aimed at interrogating key factors that impinge on Africa’s industrialization aspirations with particular focus on; the global and local policy and institutional regime, hard infrastructure, local and regional economic linkages (e.g. Special Economic Zones), human capital development, national systems of innovation and the role of natural resources endowment in the milieu.
The conference, which drew participation from the natural and social scientific community (both established and early career scientists), policy makers and think-tanks, UN agencies, the diplomatic community ended with a strongly-worded Outcome Statement to the governments and policy makers of African countries, waking them up to their responsibilities towards attaining the Africa’s industrialization in this era of the 4th Industrial Revolution globally.
An Expo and Exhibition to mark the Annual Africa Day Celebrations instituted by the African Union climaxed the conference at the Ditsong National Museum of Cultural History in Pretoria, South Africa.