LOCAL publishing company Book of African Records (BAR), in partnership with the African Union Commission and Research Council of Zimbabwe, will tomorrow host a high-level Africa Factbook stakeholders consultative conference in Harare.
BY WINSTONE ANTONIO
The one-day conference, to be attended by about 120 international delegates, will be held at the Harare International Conference Centre.
Conference organiser Kwame Muzawazi, who is the BAR founder and editor-in-chief, said all was set for the conference which is likely to boost the country’s tourism by providing locals the opportunity to forge business synergies with foreigners.
“The Africa Factbook Stakeholders Consultative Conference that is on Monday [tomorrow] is going to be a big gathering of both local and international delegates who will converge to consult extensively in order to create buy-in and support of key stakeholders so as to ensure that various resources and expertise, on the continent and beyond, are harnessed for the publishing of the Africa Factbook,” he said.
According to Muzawazi, the conference has attracted international interest among them diplomats, businesspeople, philanthropists, potential funders, academics and researchers, publishers and statisticians who are expected to touch down at Robert Gabriel Mugabe international airport today.
“Among the delegates who have confirmed their attendance are representatives from the African Union, Sadc, Ecowas, East African Community, Comesa, International Monetary Fund and World Bank,” he said.
Muzawazi said the Africa Factbook seeks to cover gaps in the continuum of knowledge management in particular the absence of a comprehensive reference source on Africa by Africans.
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“Africa still lacks an authentic and comprehensive homegrown source of data and information and in order to address this information gap, the African Union Commission signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Book of African Records in 2016 which mandated the latter to publish the Africa Factbook,” he said.
“The conference shall also serve as a marketing platform for the project and its products to ensure the factbook will be widely used. Through the process, BAR seeks to identify the possible collaborations throughout the factbook compilation process from research, verification, editing, publishing, printing to marketing and distribution.”
He said the African Factbook will be one of the tools of communication available to build a common understanding of key facts about Africa and building continental pride about the history, culture, economic successes and achievements of Africans across various spheres of society.
