‘Document African data, history’
GOVERNMENT has called for the documentation of information and data about Africa by Africans to boost education, policy planning, trade and cooperation and tourism among other areas of interest.
The call was made by Vice President General Constantino Chiwenga (Retired) at the fundraising conference of the Africa Factbook in Harare on Monday.
The Africa Factbook is a book that will generate knowledge for the continent and highlight Africa’s historical achievements, among other things. The book, will be produced by Zimbabwe with assistance from international and regional organisations.
Zimbabwe has started working towards the production of the Africa Factbook, which is meant to become a regional educational tool that enhances knowledge and the pride of African people.
Officiating at the ceremony, VP Chiwenga said a serious challenge affecting all parts of the continent was distorted information about knowledge of the African heritage.
“In some cases data is not just available. Perhaps this is because most African knowledge is not documented. Whenever it is, the story in most cases would have been written by non-Africans based on non-African sources.
“The lack of facts about Africa tends to adversely affect planning and monitoring of projects, tourism exploitation of and investment opportunities, education and cooperation.
“The prevailing information gaps and ignorance about Africa therefore, retard and stifle development efforts across the whole continent. To close the gaps and reduce ignorance about Africans, there is need to document fact, statistics, data and information about Africa by Africans to make them readily accessible to potential users and researchers,” he said.
VP Chiwenga said successful completion of the project should enable data about investment opportunity and markets to become readily accessible to a wide spectrum of users who include business executives, in boardrooms and other interested stakeholders.
“Africa Factbook should thus serve as a non-stop shop for data about Africa and with much potential for improving the ease of doing business and reducing costs,” he said.
Institute of African Knowledge representative and permanent secretary in the Office of the President and Cabinet, Dr Washington Mbizvo said today, enormous amounts of knowledge and information are generated in all fields of human activity.
Apparently it is knowledge that determines control over and ultimate success in any efforts. In Africa there is an uneasy situation where the continent has scant information about itself.
“Whatever is known is neither generated by nor disseminated among Africans themselves. This knowledge gap on the prevailing K-economy can only make Africans pace of development lag behind other continents,” he said.
The Africa Factbook came after the African Union Commission, which was chaired by the then chairperson Nkosazana Zuma, was impressed by the Book of African Records which was produced by Zimbabwe and recommended that “we had the capacity to produce the Africa Factbook”.
The AU, after sending a delegation to assess the capacity of Zimbabwe to produce the book, declared and adopted the Africa Factbook as a reference educational tool for African nations.
The book is also supported by the Office of the President and Cabinet, Research Council of Zimbabwe, six ministries, the private sector and regional and international organisations.