Competing in the global economy: Leading through productivity

Date: 21st-24th September 2008

Tracks:

  • Productivity Drivers
  • Sustainable Enterprises
  • Global Human Resource Migration
  • Best Practices

This Congress was organised in partnership with ProductivitySA, the National Productivity Centre of South Africa.

The Sun City Declaration

We the members of the global productivity community who have gathered in Sun City, South Africa from 22-24 September under the shade of the giant Baobab tree, have been inspired and informed by three days of deliberation on the Congress Theme of “Competing in the Global Economy: Leading Through Productivity.” We have been energized by the vitality and joy we have experienced through our glimpses of South African culture. Our deliberations regarding the path to competitive success ranged from identifying key Productivity Drivers to building Sustainable Enterprises to the pros and cons of Global Human Resource Migration to learning the Best Practices of leading enterprises. Like the culture of South Africa, the dialogue has been fuelled by the richness of our differences and has generated sparks of innovation and inspiration. As a result, we, the members of the global productivity community declare that:

We affirm that sustained productivity improvement is the path to competitive success and poverty elimination and that in order to address our challenges We must abandon incremental thinking and set our sights on creating breakthrough levels of productivity improvement.

We acknowledge the shifting paradigms of productivity and the need to pursue simultaneously the three productivities of economic, environmental and social wealth. At all levels, sustained productivity improvement must be built on a foundation of effective governance.

The people of Africa will take charge of their own productivity destiny through their own innovation and ingenuity assisted by partnerships, technology transfer, and peer-to-peer networking relationships with the more developed world that are grounded in mutual respect and trust. Strategic partnerships on the African Productivity Agenda should be strengthened and developed with key organizations including the World Confederation of Productivity Science and the Asian Productivity Organization.

The principles of environmentally and economically sustainable productivity and competitiveness are particularly suited to alleviating poverty in African communities and enabling the economic self-actualization of African individuals, enterprises, organizations, nations and regions.

The African Union Commission (AUC) is to develop and sustain the African Productivity Movement in partnership with the Pan-African Productivity Association (PAPA) and the World Confederation of Productivity Science (WCPS) with a view toward raising the awareness/mindset/culture change and creating breakthrough levels of improvement in African productivity and competitiveness.

The AU, regional economic communities (REC) and African governments should ensure that their policies support the mainstreaming of productivity in all economic sectors.

Africa will close the ICT gap between itself and the North in order to make its firms and nations more competitive.

Africa will create a greater focus on improving the productivity of manufacturing, tourism and the agricultural sectors and will recognize the necessity of dialogue and collaboration among management, labour, government and education to achieve these results.

The AU should appoint PAPA as its official representative, in association with African national productivity organizations, for driving the African Productivity Movement to achieve the African Economic Renaissance and Millennium Development Goals.