Economic Growth: Africans Want Publishing Industry Key Pillar

A high level regional conference on the publishing industry in Africa and its role in education and economic growth is taking place in Yaounde.

African governments are resolutely determined to get the publishing industry one of the main pillars of the continent’s economic growth by putting in place actions for the public/private partnerships  in order to get in Africa good benchmarks and good practices on which to build.

As the Deputy Director General of the World Intellectual Property Rights Organisation (WIPO) for Copyright and Creative Industries Sector, Sylvie Forbin said, this is the ultimate goal of  the high level regional two-day conference that started at the Yaounde Hilton Hotel on November 22, 2017. 

The importance of the book and publishing industry has taken a central position in preoccupations of the African continent that the Yaounde conference is place under the patronage of the Cameroon’s Head of State, Paul Biya.

The Head of State, as such designated Prime Minister, Head of Government, Philemon Yang who chaired the opening ceremony of the conference in his name.

The Director General of the World Intellectual Property Rights Organisation, Francis Gurry in a video statement said the development of the publishing industry in Africa was vital considering that the continent had the fastest growing youth population that will soon make Africa the centre of human resources.

He said Africa that was in the process of transformation and emergence, needed a strong book industry, planned quality education and a valuable publishing industry.

Corroborating the Director General of WIPO, the organisation’s Deputy Director General Sylvie Forbin told the press that international statistics indicated that the biggest publishing enterprises were in the United States of America, Europe, Japan, China and India.

She indicated that Africa was under represented . The continent, she further disclosed, has many authors but the organisation of the sector as a publishing industry capable of producing its own a...