A strong private sector is the key to driving economic growth and development on the African continent – and can also play a vital role in holding governments to account and promoting political stability.

African business schools need to take the lead in ensuring the continent’s managers have the necessary skills and knowledge to drive this much-needed economic and democratic expansion.

Professor Anton Eberhard, head of the Management Programme in Infrastructure Reform and Regulation (MIR) at the UCT Graduate School of Business (UCT GSB), has initiated a peer review and learning network to improve leadership and management capability within Africa’s electricity regulatory agencies.

The world marked International Literacy Day on September 8, a day dedicated to reflecting on the worryingly high rates of illiteracy. Literacy Day started as an initiative by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) 44 years ago. It developed several social projects with the objective of attempting to reduce illiteracy rates worldwide.

In the backdrop of the global slowdown, some business schools in the India are redesigning their syllabuses to groom students to cope up with a withering employment market and help in rebuilding the economy.

As part of a world-wide screening, the Africa Centre for Dispute Settlement at the University of Stellenbosch Business School is offering a unique opportunity to view the documentary Pray the Devil Back to Hell, the gripping account of a group of brave and visionary women who demanded peace for Liberia, a nation torn to shreds by a decades-old civil war.