President Jakaya Kikwete yesterday launched the national preparations for the next Smart Partnership Dialogue scheduled to take place in May next year in the country, insisting on leveraging technology as prerequisite for development.
Kikwete who is also Commonwealth Partnership for Technology Management (CPTM) fellow, host patron and adviser, said technology is quickly becoming a prerequisite for development and survival in the current socio economic environment throughout the world.
In the present globalisation era, he said, one cannot shy away from technology.
“Indeed, technology empowers farmers and allows them to cultivate without worrying about the vagaries of weather through irrigation and greenhouse options. Governments are able to improve governance systems through IT solutions,” he said.
The theme of next year’s Global 2013 Smart Partnership Dialogue is: “Leveraging Technology for Africa’s Socio Economic Development.
He said about 800 participants from the Commonwealth community are expected to attend the four-day event in Dar es Salaam which will commence on May 24 next year.
According to the president, hosting of the 2013 global smart partnership dialogue in the country will send out a clear message to all the technologically advanced countries that, the continent has geared itself towards the discourse on technology.
The President said the country was willing to accept partners and to incorporate technological change and advancement in all initiatives that are currently being conceived, designed and implemented in the continent.
He however said that his decision to host the next session of the Smart Partnership Dialogue in the country was not an accident but based on his conviction after participating in the Dialogue twice, first in Munyonyo, Uganda and then Malaysia in 2011.
CPTM Chief Executive Officer Dr Mihaela Smith praised the efforts undertaken by different member states in dealing with issues facing individual states and the continent at large.
She said during the 2013 Global Smart Partnership Dialogue the gathering will have different tasks including getting feedback from the last dialogue conducted in Putrajaya, Malaysia in June last year.
“For now you can question why nations fail, but following our manifesto we will be asking ourselves why nations prosper,” she noted.
For his part, Chief Secretary, Ambassador Ombeni Sefue said already the National Steering Committee that comprises of Permanent Secretaries from all Ministries as well as Representatives of Key-line Sectors both on Mainland and Zanzibar have been appointed to lead the way in preparations.
Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation Bernard Membe, explained that the Smart Partnership Dialogues was a brainchild of the Commonwealth Partnership for Technology Management.
He said the partnership gives opportunity to all member’ state to chair dialogue in decision making for avoiding one ‘the weak state’ to be humiliated by the other, ‘the strong ones’.
He said smart partnership implied all sectors, institutions both from public and private corridor in the country co-operate with each other in solving different social economic problems.
The CPTM which is the social and scientific interlinkage of the Commonwealth, has since 1995 undertaken in collaboration with willing national partners for the discussion of topical subjects in a conducive, inclusive and open dialogue.
Other African countries that have hosted the Smart Partnership Dialogues include Botswana, Namibia, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Swaziland, Lesotho and Uganda that has hosted it twice. Other countries include Barbados, and Malaysis that has hosted the dialogue nine times.