6. Mutual Learning and Sharing of Experiences
To enhance commercial relations and the achievement of broader development-oriented goals, Central and Eastern European countries could potentially provide technical expertise and advice in the realm of education policies, public-sector reform and market-economy transition measures, such as privatization. While such policies do not have a singular purpose of improving business, they do, on the whole, improve the business climate in a specific country. In the 1990s, Central and Eastern Europe experienced a significant surge of inward FDI that spurred its economic growth. Part of the reason for its success also lies in its highly qualified yet cheap labour force, and the reforms that have taken place in education systems and public administration.
Central and Eastern European development assistance programmes make explicit reference to ‘transitional experience’ as an added benefit to EU development assistance programmes, and they have done so in the context of the European Neighbourhood to a certain extent (in the context of non-EU economies within the Central and Eastern European region such as Ukraine, Moldova, Belarus and Georgia), but they have still not articulated in which areas they could add value in African contexts.67 There are some current examples that can be drawn on, however. For instance, Estonia is working with the AU on introducing e-governance systems in several African countries, as well as a regional academy in Mauritius,68 while Slovakia places emphasis on capacity-building in public financial management.69
There must be caution, however, on applicability of circumstances, or rather transferability of experience. In some cases, it is rather hard to apply lessons learned, due to the differing circumstances and influences around Central and Eastern Europe and sub-Saharan Africa. Poland, for instance, was a middle-income country in the early 1990s, and its success was strongly related to the presence of a strong neighbouring German economy.70 In contrast, at the present time most sub-Saharan African countries are still developing economies, and largely lack a strong economic neighbour. Despite this, however, there are exceptions, such as South Africa. While South Africa never had a socialist legacy, it is a middle-income emerging economy, as was Poland in the 1990s, and is at the stage of needing to privatize some of its industries, just as Poland underwent extensive privatizations to transform its centrally planned economy to a market-based economy. Some interlocutors pointed out that, having undergone privatization on a large scale, several Central and Eastern European countries are well positioned to share this experience with African partners.
Likewise, some sub-Saharan African countries are also in a position to provide lessons learned to Central and Eastern Europe. The small sub-Saharan African countries of Mauritius and Rwanda outranked all (except the Baltic states) of Central and Eastern Europe in the World Bank’s Doing Business 2019 rankings, taking 20th and 27th position, respectively.71 Some reforms initiated in these economies might provide a good model for Central and Eastern Europe to follow. Likewise, and despite the generally more advanced ICT sector in Central and Eastern Europe, Kenya on the whole presents a case-study of entrepreneurial growth in its rapidly evolving ICT sector. For Central and Eastern European countries that need to bridge the income gap and achieve full convergence with the EU-15 member states, innovation is imperative. It was pointed out in research interviews that Kenya and Poland in particular together have a good mix of entrepreneurial and tech skills that could result in a synergetic partnership in ICT.72
Perhaps more importantly, in light of what is widely viewed as a degree of democratic ‘backsliding’ since EU accession in certain Central and Eastern European countries, in terms of the independence of their media and judiciary, some sub-Saharan African states have other valuable institutional lessons to share. In the academic literature, a lack of judicial independence leads to decreasing investor confidence and declining FDI.73 Some African countries, such as Mauritius, Namibia, Rwanda and South Africa, are ranked more highly for judicial independence in the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Report 2017–2018 than certain Central and Eastern European countries.74
67 Szent-Ivanyi, B. and Lightfoot, S. (2015), ‘Central and Eastern European transition experience in EU development policy’ (Conference Proceedings –Submitted).
68 Estonian Public Broadcasting ERR (2017), ‘Estonia Signs E-Governance Cooperation Agreement with the African Union’, 12 December, 2017, https://news.err.ee/646044/estonia-signs-e-governance-cooperation-agreement-with-african-union (accessed 16 Oct. 2019).
69 Research interviews (2019).
70 Research interviews (2019).
71 World Bank (2019), Doing Business 2019: Training for Reform, http://www.doingbusiness.org/content/dam/doingBusiness/media/Annual-Reports/English/DB2019-report_web-version.pdf (accessed 13 Jun. 2019).
72 Research interviews (2019).
73 Bellani, M. M. (2014), Judicial efficiency and foreign direct investments: evidence from OECD countries, https://www.etsg.org/ETSG2014/Papers/358.pdf (accessed 14 Jun. 2019).
74 Schwab, K. (ed.) and Sala-i-Martín, X. (2017), The Global Competitiveness Report 2017–2018, Geneva: World Economic Forum, pp. 200, 214, 250, 268, http://www3. weforum.org/docs/GCR2017-2018/05FullReport/TheGlobalCompetitivenessReport2017%E2%80%932018.pdf (accessed 30 Oct. 2019).