May 9-11, 2007
Gaborone, Botswana
To foster dialogue between the business community and government officials in 5 African countries, CIPE hosted a 3-day Public-Private Policy Dialogue Conference in Gaborone, Botswana in May 2007, in cooperation with the Botswana Confederation of Commerce, Industry and Manpower (BOCCIM). Conference delegates included Ministers of Trade and Industry, Members of Parliament, and leaders of the national chamber of commerce and key business associations from the following countries: Botswana, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Namibia, and Tanzania. Greg Lebedev, CIPE Board Chairman, and Hon. Patrick Balopi, the Speaker of the Botswana National Assembly, officially opened the conference. Katherine Canavan, US Ambassador to Botswana, and high level USAID officials attended the Opening Ceremony. Hon. Lt. Gen. Mompati S. Merafhe, Botswana’s Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Co-Operation, officially closed the conference.
During the conference, delegates from each country delivered presentations on the current status of policy dialogue in their respective countries, followed by discussion on the challenges and opportunities for improved public-private partnerships. On the second day of the conference, delegates attended Botswana’s semi-annual High Level  Consultative Council (HLCC), a forum chaired by the President of Botswana, where private sector representatives meet with the highest levels of government to discuss issues that affect the business community. Conference delegates also received a copy of the new CIPE case study on Botswana’s system of public-private dialogue written by Elias Dewah, the former Executive Director of BOCCIM and an instrumental figure in establishing cooperative relations between Botswana’s business community and government. In addition to observing the Botswana model of public-private dialogue, conference delegates shared best practices on public-private partnerships from their countries, offering a range of practical experience from which other countries could adapt their own dialogue forums. On the final day of the conference, each country delegation met separately to plan strategies for implementing the lessons learned in their own countries.
This site contains proceedings and photos from the CIPE Public-Private Policy Dialogue Conference. We hope the resources available on this site will be useful to conference delegates and others who are working to improve public-private dialogue in their own countries.
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