October 20, 2021
Introduction
The session was an interactive roundup to discuss, collaborate and dig deeper into the various sessions that took place within the day from an academic lens. The panel provided practical insights and highlighted salient points from the various themes debated earlier.
The Panellist emphasised that the world has gone through three different shocks over the last five years; these include; environmental disaster and COVID-19; digital revolution; and a drastic policy change to be able to cope with these global shocks. They added that governments globally had to review their tax laws, make changes to their trade agreements and implement new industrial measures and policies to create and replace the many jobs lost due to the aforementioned shocks; especially the pandemic.
Session highlights
They mentioned that although COVID-19 has caused the drastic decline in Foreign Direct Investment in almost every sector of the global economy, there has also been a sharp boost in investment in the ICT and digital technology sector. They opined that the pandemic has increased the demand for digital technology and owners of these digital tools such as zoom, teams, bluejeans among others have benefitted from an astronomical surge in revenue, as the world turned to these tools during the pandemic.
This according to the Panellists is the new world era; the digital technology era. Thus, they called on countries, especially developing countries to increase their investment in ICT as it is a resilient sector that can thrive regardless of unforeseen shocks. They called on developing countries to invest in such digital infrastructure to be able to attract sustainable investment from developed economies.
The Panellist also highlighted the AfCFTA as a game changer for Africa as it provides the continent with an opportunity to increase its infrastructure and boost trade and investment in all priority sectors. Panellists alluded to the fact that AfCFTA presents Africa with an important and modest recovery plan to build back stronger and can help in attaining the SDGs.
The Panellist also disclosed that from earlier figures mentioned, development partners are ready to invest in areas that are addressing specific global issues, more to the point, SDGs, climate change, green renewable energy among others, hence called on developing countries to prioritise these sectors to attract long term sustainable investment to improve the livelihood of the people in their countries.
Opening
- Ari Van Assche, Full Professor, HEC Montréal
On the panel were
- Sarianna Lundan, Professor, Universität Bremen
- Lorraine Eden, Professor Emerita, Texas A&M University
Moderator
- Ari Van Assche, Full Professor, HEC Montréal