Introduction

The SAEN is part of a pan-African association known as the ENTERPRISE NETWORK that brings together new generation African entrepreneurs who seek to improve the business climate in their home countries and to foster regional trade and investment in their geographic sub-regions.  

The History

The SAEN was officially launched in September 1998 and is made up of eleven national Enterprise Networks in Botswana, Madagascar, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe, with Lesotho and Swaziland being the latest entrants and Angola the next possible entrant.

The SAEN is based on a unique organisational model for the private sector, first developed in 1993 in West Africa. At that time, a group of 35 business men and women from seven West African countries came together to form a network of new generation entrepreneurs who sought to develop a strong and dynamic private sector that could become the engine for economic development in the countries of the sub-region.

Within five years, the West African Enterprise Network (WAEN) grew to include 350 entrepreneurs in 13 national networks, from both Anglophone and Franco-phone countries, with a member-funded regional secretariat in Accra, Ghana.

Expansion of the Enterprise Network initiative to East and Southern Africa began in 1998.

Enterprise Networks seek synergies with other private sector Organisations to pursue common objectives.  

The Members

Membership in the Enterprise Network is individual and selective and includes business persons with the following profile: new generation entrepreneurs with a global market perspective, owners and operators of their own firms, high integrity, strong interest in regional trade and investment and willingness to devote personal time and financial resources to the Enterprise Network.

National Enterprise Networks are strictly apolitical and entirely self-financed. Membership is intentionally cross sectoral.

The Network 

SAEN’s mission is “to promote the development of profitable cross-border trade and investment in Southern Africa, and to improve the business climate in the SAEN member countries”.  The strategic action plan of SAEN outlines the activities that the Network will undertake in order to fulfil its mission.  Some of these include the improvement of business information flows in Southern Africa, and increasing private sector participation in Regional integration dialogue.

The Partners

The Network is working closely with key strategic allies such as COMESA, Common Market of Eastern and Southern Africa, SADC, Southern African Development Council and UNECA, United Nations Economic Commision for Africa, which it feels are essential to the fulfilment of its mission. The SAEN also works closely with national  economic agencies, and with a large number of donor agencies which support its objectives, including the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the World Bank, USAID, the Agence Francaise de Developpement, the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), the Swiss Co-operation, the Belgian Co-operation and the European Union (EU). 

The SAEN also has an extensive network of business ties to investor Organisations worldwide, including the U.S. Corporate Council on Africa, the French CNPF, the German Afrika Verein, the British-African Business Association, the Malaysian South-South Corporation and the Singapore Trade Development Board.

The Individual Achievements

SAEN’s individual members have also taken a strong lead in the collaborative approach of the regional network.

One of SAEN’s members from the Mozambique Enterprise successfully co-hosted a workshop on Emerging Foreign Markets in co-operation with

The Southern African Initiative of German Business (SAFRI).  This workshop was held in Maputo and there are plans to extend this relationship to other countries. In addition a number of successful cross border deals have already been consummated with a number being negotiated among the members.

Another of SAEN’s members is working with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) under the PICAS Programme on the development of Growth Triangles in Zambia, Malawi and Mozambique.