On the eve of the SA Innovation Summit 2024, “Africa’s premier Innovation and Startup Summit”, i4Policy was invited to an important Regional Experts Meeting of 16 Southern African policymakers and ecosystem leaders.
The 18 September event was jointly hosted in Cape Town by the Southern Africa Innovation Collective (SAIC), The Southern African Development Community (SADC), MLab, and supported by the German Agency for International Co-operation (GIZ) through its Make-IT in Africa programme.
Leaders from Angola, Botswana, Comoros, DRC, Eswatini, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Seychelles, South Africa, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe were brought together to share opportunities and challenges on each of their national and regional startup ecosystems. To facilitate conversations, English, Portuguese and French translators were on hand to ensure the multilingual group understood one another and aided robust discussions on the day.
As part of the day’s proceedings, Belisa Rodrigues, representing i4Policy, was invited onto a panel discussion to discuss the important theme of “Start Up Acts”. The Policy panel discussion included panelists Dr Konanani Rashamuse, Chief Director: Innovation Priorities and Instruments (DSI), representative of SA Startup Act Movement, Adrian Dommisse (Founding Director Dommisse Attorneys), and was moderated by Alexandra Fraser, CEO Viridian.
The panel discussion covered topics such as “What is a Start Up?”, “How do you know if your country needs a Startup Act?”, and lessons learnt from the South Africa Startup Act movement. A participant from Angola raised concern about their current lawmaking process, where internally they were not sure whether a Startup Act is needed or current laws amended. Another participant from Zimbabwe raised a challenge in his country around how to get everyone involved and on the same page. Rodrigues responded by offering some participatory methodologies that i4Policy have used in various case studies in Senegal and Nigeria such as policy hackathons, townhall meetings and AI chat bots. It was also highlighted that it is important not to ask who to involve, but rather “Who is missing from this conversation?”.
As part of the discussion, Rodrigues shared with the audience relevant tools and resources for policymakers eager to kickstart their entrepreneurship policy journey. She showcased the i4Policy platform called Ecosystem.build, and focused on two (2) relevant products:
- The Policy Library of Startup Acts and SBAs which allows policymakers to access a host of African policies and search for specific incentives or clauses within each law;
- as well as the Entrepreneurship Policy Learning Series especially the short online course #5 “How to Build your Startup Act”.
Although the panel came at the end of a long day, the Southern African audience were engaged and curious to know more. The meeting ended on a high note, with many new Southern African connections forged, going into the Innovation Summit the following day.
