Rwandan President Paul Kagame has urged East African Community (EAC) member states to enhance their technology capabilities and innovativeness for economic growth.

In a speech delivered during the official opening of the Academia, Public and Private Partnership Forum at Serena Hotel in Kigali, President Kagame said the region should emulate emerging markets that have enhanced levels of production and innovative products for international markets.

"Markets with innovation as a key competitiveness factor experience greater price competition," President Kagame said in a speech read on his behalf by Rwanda's Education Minister Silas Lwakabamba.

He said improved transport and communication network have facilitated exchange of data and goods, accelerating international transfer of technology.

"This strategy requires substantial investments in education, research and development, technological development and the development of indigenous potential," he said as he cited South Korea as an example of an innovation-oriented development model.

He also called on higher education institutions and the private sector to focus on innovations for development.

The forum follows resolutions of similar meetings held in Tanzania and Kenya in the past where players agreed that East Africa will not make tremendous achievements unless the research and innovation spaces are expanded.

READ: Academia, private sector conference underway in Kigali

“Africa cannot move from its position unless we identify challenges facing the region’s innovation potential and seek ways of strengthening the private sector, government and academia partnership,” said Mr Felix Mosha, chairman of the East African Business Council said.

“That is the only way to bridge the job market scarcity faced in the region today,” he added.

Rwanda’s Finance Permanent Secretary Kampeta Sayinzoga also emphasised the need for institutions of higher learning to adjust their curricula to produce self reliant graduates as “opposed to producing job seekers.”

“It is a question we should keep asking ourselves and must get answers because the umbrella of job seekers is increasing at an alarming rate,” Ms Sayinzoga who also heads the East African Development Bank said.

EAC’s Secretary General Richard Sezibera called on EAC members to allow free movement of skills and innovations. He said the countries should also allow employment of citizens from member states to ease unemployment in the region.

He further stressed the need for shared technology skills across the region as partner states strive to open up borders to a single monetary and customs union.

“We will not achieve much if we don’t allow the free flow of these skills across the region,” he said.

At the end of the two-day conference, participants are expected to come up with long term solutions on ways of promoting strategic and sustainable development of higher education systems and research for supporting East Africa’s socio-economic development and regional integration.

The forum has drawn 250 participants from the five East African Community member states and follows a partnership entered between the Inter-Universities Council of East Africa and the East Africa Business Council in 2011.

The partnership aims to provide point of connection between knowledge and human resources produced by higher education institutions and the dissemination of the same to the private sector for their eventual diffusion into the productive, social and service sectors.

The forum is geared towards coming up with practical strategies for implementing the programme on Supporting the development of academia-public-private partnership platforms in the EAC. It also aims to support private sector linked postgraduate training at Masters and PhD levels as well as postdoctoral schemes.

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