Although the world financial crisis has abated and the global economy is recovering, this recovery remains brittle and volatile. Sub-Saharan Africa, although initially not as hard hit has not escaped the effects – particularly countries like South Africa, where our financial markets are extensively integrated into global financial markets. What can Governments in Africa do to speed up this recovery? The Knowlead Team suggests that, other than the financial amelioration that is already being instituted, Governments in Africa can fruitfully engage with Knowledge Management practices to not only bring about a more rapid economic turnaround, but also to confront the many patent inefficiencies in government.

It is heartening to note that some positive signals, such as provided by Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi^1, have been sent out from the public sector in Africa:

The 21st Century African public service has to be a learning organisation, a learning organisation in which people at all levels, individually and collectively, are continually increasing their capacity to produce results they really care about, where the organisation encourages new ways of thinking, where the collective vision of creating the best is liberated, and where everybody continuously learns how to learn together.

Developing countries are thus not necessarily reluctant to embark on implementing KM in the public sector, but as the World Bank has stated, wary of the challenge and their lack of experience and knowledge to do so. This provides a clear signal to encourage African Governments to proactively engage with KM training. We should further strategise innovatively and, as Sinclair (2006) puts it, adopt “stealth KM” by alerting African Governments of the many KM success stories from other parts of the world and the benefit of leveraging a country’s embedded knowledge.

¹Address in 2007 as South Africa’s Minister of Public Service and Administration to the African Management Development Institutes Network Conference