‘Kaizen catalyses mindset shift of business owners’

NARDOS BEKELE-THOMAS 

I have a long-standing interest and professional expertise in Africa’s Industrialisation, and feel this is an area of critical importance in AUDA-NEPAD’s programmatic focus.

This will be fundamental to the achievement of our continental vision and development agendas.

As we know, the recent years have been extremely challenging for the continent. We have experienced a recession for the first time in 25 years. The impacts from the COVID-19 pandemic, coupled with recent geopolitical conflicts and other environmental and socio-economic shocks, have caused major disruptions across the continent.

The successful execution of the next Ten-year Implementation Plan for Agenda 2063, and associated continental frameworks such as the Plan for Accelerated Industrial Development for Africa (AIDA), and the African Continental Free Trade Area Agreement (AfCFTA), will be essential in the face of these challenges.

Indeed, Africa needs to look beyond the traditional compartmentalisation of infrastructure, industrialisation, and trade. This cross-cutting approach will help African countries to increase their resiliency to future socio-economic shocks, by increasing regional integration.

AUDA-NEPAD therefore, embraces the imperative for supporting Africa’s Industrialisation and intra-African trade with strong multi-sectoral linkages to domestic economies.

The potential economic contributions and job creation opportunities of the AfCFTA, requires Africa to produce, feed and grow local and regional supply chains.

Within these supply chains, Micro, Small and Medium sized Enterprises (MSMEs), both in the formal and informal sectors, are critical drivers of economic growth and development in most African economies, and account for up to 90% of all businesses in Africa’s markets.

Support for the integration and growth of African MSMEs is, therefore, critical and we are working to implement initiatives that specifically improve productivity, value addition and competitiveness along the value chain.

To be effective, a strong and active private sector requires a conducive enabling environment to achieve the benefits of Africa’s industrialisation, market and trade aspirations.

Certainly, the realisation of Africa’s free trade area will depend on the implementation of coordinated industrial policies.

This will enable African countries to produce quality goods and services to trade, and to drive transformative industrialisation that is focused on economic diversification, technological innovation and social and environmental sustainability.

The expanded scope and mandate of AUDA-NEPAD, as Africa’s Development Agency, is such that we are indeed compelled to act in a very targeted and coordinated manner.

We are therefore, crafting our collaboration with like-minded partners, such as JICA, to leverage on each other’s roles, competencies and resources to address continental priorities.

Current areas of joint focus for strengthening Africa’s Industrialisation and trade, include the development of a strong private sector and increased competitiveness through quality and productivity improvement, along the value chain.

In these areas, we need to transform MSMEs into critical players within international markets and global value chains. We are doing this successfully through the African Kaizen Initiative.

Since AUDA-NEPAD and JICA launched the “Africa Kaizen Initiative (AKI)” in 2017, significant achievements have been made.

The experiences of countries participating in the African Kaizen Initiative is positive and illustrates both quantitative and qualitative achievements.

Reports indicate that the introduction of Kaizen principles, have helped to improve both the quality and productivity of traded goods and services.  It has also boosted the competency, resilience and scaling of MSMEs.

The introduction of Kaizen has been shown to catalyse a change in mind-set of business owners and staff and to reduce operating costs and waste.

The positive attitude fostered through the African Kaizen Initiative, fundamentally rectifies workplace challenges, develops problem solving skills and instils the creativity and innovation needed for new and developing businesses in this fast-paced, changing environment.

Evidently, the methodology of the initiative is working. The comprehensive, 5-year Action Plan (2021-2025) is successfully guiding the African Kaizen Initiative to build incremental impacts.

Joint Working Groups and Annual Conferences serve as platforms for exchange of best practices and continental awards incentivise participating companies to improve their performance.

The progress thus far is encouraging and AUDA-NEPAD expects the cumulative outcomes from these activities will contribute to the implementation of our continental flagship initiatives for trade and industrialisation.

In addition to the current activities, I feel that there are even more opportunities to be leveraged through our cooperation, to address some of the persistent gaps in Africa’s development trajectory.

In particular, I refer to the role that governments and private sector must play for a more meaningful participation of youth and women in Africa’s development.

Equitable development is an imperative if we are to achieve the long-term growth that we seek. Statistics from the International Finance Corporation tell us that while 58% of all micro, small and medium enterprises in Africa are women-owned, social inequality remains as the critical development challenge.

For instance, a total of 68% of women-led MSMEs in developing countries do not have adequate access to finance, resulting in a $1.5 trillion financing gap.

My vision for AUDA-NEPAD is for us to leverage existing initiatives and partnerships, to tackle such challenges head-on.

In the coming months we will be launching innovative new efforts to Energise Africa’s youth and women.

These will seek to build on the successes of our joint efforts such as the African Kaizen Initiative, with the aim of deepening our cooperation for the benefit of our African industries and people.

I am keen to listen to the discussions on the progress, challenges and way forward of the African Kaizen Initiative, as we strive to grow and realise our potential towards progress and prosperity.

Nardos Bekele-Thomas is the CEO of the African Union Development Agency. She made the presentation at the TICAD8 side event last week held under the theme, Accelerating Africa’s Industrialization by applying Kaizen and creating decent work.