PRESIDENT Emmerson Mnangagwa has called on Sadc countries to reconfigure their educational models in pursuance of the industrialisation and modernisation agenda for economic development.
Speaking at a public lecture running under the theme Building Research Capacity and Innovation Ecosystems for a Sustainable Industrialised Sadc Economy, Mnangagwa encouraged the region to develop strategies to unlock value from the diverse resources it collectively shares.
He said Sadc had unique opportunities that position the bloc for success.
“We have all the requirements to become an economic powerhouse on the global arena. We are endowed with a rich resource-base, resilient and interconnected people; vast arable land for agriculture; a wide array of minerals, a good climate, abundant wildlife as well as a rich culture,” Mnangagwa said.
“Our task is to unlock value from these diverse resources that we collectively share as a bloc.
“Let me reiterate the important need for Sadc, to re-purpose our human capital resource pool and optimise production and productivity specialisation anchored on the right education philosophy and configuration.”
He said Zimbabwe was ready to share experiences of this journey with Sadc member States to evaluate, review and restructure respective education models to drive industrialisation and modernisation of the bloc.
The President said there was a need to invest in research to drive forward our modernisation and industrialisation agenda.
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“To achieve this, the programming of our new education systems should be aligned to the abundant and key resources distributed across the Sadc bloc,” he said.
“I, therefore, challenge member States to further reflect on these critical issues as we re-organise and mobilise to drive forward our modernisation and industrialisation agenda, through the requisite knowledge, research, innovation and new technologies.”
Mnangagwa said Sadc needed also to leverage on natural resources and human capital to make the region a competitive economic bloc that has impact across the globe.
“We have a duty to boldly and proactively address enclaves of disproportionate socio-economic development. The region should never play second fiddle in the arena of international economic relations,” he said.
“Leveraging on our combined resource endowments and human capacities the region must emerge as a competitive economic bloc with the requisite capabilities to produce a wide array of goods and services. As Sadc member States, we have all it takes to succeed.”
