EASTERN AFRICA BUSINESS AND ECONOMIC WATCH

CONCEPT NOTE FOR ORGANIZING 4th ANNUAL INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE – EASTERN AFRICA BUSINESS AND ECONOMIC WATCH (4th EABEW-2019) ON

“INCLUSIVE GROWTH AND SUSTAINABLE SOCIO-ECONOMIC TRANSFORMATION”
Introduction

Rwanda has been making strides in development front during the last two decades. It has been emerging as a fast-growing economy second only to Ethiopia in the continent. Both Rwanda and Ethiopia are the part of Eastern Africa, which has experienced rapid economic growth. The socio-economic scenario of this region has been changed since the beginning of 21st century with the fast growth of agriculture, industry and tertiary sectors. Inclusive growth has been the main stay of development strategy of Rwanda since the dawn of new era of socio-economic transformation began. Inclusiveness of women in top decision-making bodies of the country and decentralized local government and enhanced participation of citizens in discovering home grown solutions to several economic problems like poverty have contributed to sustained results of improvement.

According to World Economic Forum’s 2017 report on Inclusive Growth and Development, there is a global consensus on the socially-inclusive approach to generate economic growth, but it laments that it remains an aspiration.
Many developing countries in Africa, Rwanda inclusive, have embarked upon the inclusive approach to transform their economies. The emphasis on ‘developing agriculture’ continues while the manufacturing and services are focused more to gain and sustain the momentum of growth. A great emphasis has been laid in Rwanda on the service sector development by mainly investing in infrastructure. Rwanda has identified, recently, its future drivers of growth aiming at sustainable socio-economic transformation paving the way for realizing the defined vision of 2050. On the similar note the East African Community has established vision 2050 in conformity to the Africa Agenda 2063. All these long-term agenda at country level, regional and continent level address the inclusive growth issues to attain sustainable socio-economic transformation.

Therefore, this conference is addressed to enquire in to the relationship between inclusive growth and the changing dynamics of agriculture, manufacturing and services sectors in Rwanda and the region. The title of the conference is “Inclusive Growth and Sustainable Socio-Economic Transformation”. The conference is aimed at bringing together researchers, policy makers, industry practitioners and other stakeholders to discuss and try to understand the inclusive growth and the sustainable socio-economic transformation. The prime focus of the conference will be on Rwanda, but the Eastern Africa shall also particularly highlighted and targeted as this region has been transforming much faster than the other regions in the Africa content as a whole. However, the continent level focus shall not be missed out in the conference.

Background

This is a 4th EABEW 2019 is an international conference in series organized by the College of Business and Economics, University of Rwanda in collaboration with the Jonkoping International Business School of Jonkoping University, Sweden under the UR-Sweden, Economics and Management Sub-programme. The 1st EABEW -2015 was organized during 4th to 6th May around the theme of “Recent Trends in Economic Development, Finance and Management Research in Eastern Africa”. Received 72 papers and presented 68 papers in the conference, among which are 50 peer-reviewed articles in three books published by Springer with titles Entrepreneurship and SMEs Management Across Africa ; Poverty and Well-Being in East Africa ; Economic Integration, Currency Union, and Sustainable and Inclusive Growth in East Africa. The 2nd EABEW-2016 was also organized on the same theme but with a focus on “Entrepreneurship and Innovation”. 93 papers were presented in this conference, which were published in international peer reviewed journals and three edited books. The 3rd EABEW -2017 was organized on Business, Economic Development and Policy on the theme of “Perspectives on Rwanda from Vision 2020 to Vision 2050” in which 117 papers were presented. Majority of these papers were published in the edited books by Springer, Edgar, Academic etc.,

Emphasis will be placed on Rwanda, not only as the host country, but also due to its emergence as a forceful economy in the continent by making striking imprints in the world economy as a peaceful place for trade, commerce and to locate manufacturing activities. With a deepened focus on developing Human Capital, Rwanda has made service sector as the high priority sector for intervention.

Venue and dates of the conference

University of Rwanda, College of Business and Economics, Rwanda. The specific venue of the conference shall be communicated later. The conference will be held during 12-14 June 2019.

For more details visit : 4th EABEW 2019 website https://conference.ur.ac.rw/

https://conference.ur.ac.rw/