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DANIDA Africa days in June

25 May, 2009

JOHANNESBURG. Danida Development Days 2009 (DDD-09) will take place 8-9 June 2009 in Copenhagen. This year the focus will be on the initiatives and recommendations of the Africa Commission.

Every year in June the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs hosts an event aimed at the Danish development community – the so called Danida Development Days (DDD) – with the overall objective to share knowledge and lessons learned regarding priority areas of development co-operation and to strengthen the quality of the dialogue and networking within the development community.

This year the focus of the DDD will be on the initiatives and recommendations of the Africa Commission, established by the Danish Prime Minister in 2008. Over two days, June 8 and 9, 2009, highly renowned international development professionals and academics as well as representatives from the financial and business sector, many of whom have been directly involved in the work of the Commission, will gather to discuss “The Africa Commission – Making the Recommendations a Reality”.

The Danish Minister for Development Ms. Ulla Tørnæs will participate in the event. In an informal atmosphere, both days will evolve around three initial keynote speeches – by Commissioners and other high-level representatives from African and international agencies, research institutions and the private sector – followed by parallel sessions with panel discussions based on targeted interventions by two presenters and a discussant focusing on the five priority areas of the Africa Commission and on some of the cross-cutting issues:

Post-primary education and research;

Benchmarks for African competitiveness;

Access to sustainable energy;

Unleashing African entrepreneurship;

Finance for SMEs;

Advancing the economic empowerment of women;

Agriculture as a vehicle for sustained economic growth;

Good governance as a prerequisite for economic growth and development.