City of Victoria Falls

The Smart Africa Alliance secretariat has announced Zimbabwe as the host of the sixth edition of the Transform Africa Summit which is set for 26 to 28 April this year.

The event, which takes the format of a confex since it includes an exhibition, is set to be held at the Elephant Hills Hotel in the resort city of Victoria Falls.

In a statement on the event’s website, the Smart Africa Alliance secretariat highlighted that the summit is set to be held under the theme, “Connect, Innovate and Transform.”

“Following five successful editions, the sixth Summit will take place at Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe.

“Transform Africa Summit aims to enable Member States to become more competitive, agile, open and innovative smart economies. It is an opportunity for meaningful engagements on how governments can attract large-scale investments and enable fast growth and exports as well as for the private sector to thrive in an innovation and ICT-driven entrepreneurship ecosystem, hence transform African nations into smart societies,” Transform Africa explained.

The event is set to be attended by Ministers in ICT, Finance, Trade & Industry and Health, fintech companies, digital health service providers, artificial Intelligence firms and experts, ICT Private Sector service providers and telecommunications, utility regulators business influencers and technology innovators among others.

Presidents Paul Kagame and Emmerson Mnangagwa of Rwanda and Zimbabwe respectively are expected to address the summit. President Kagame also chairs the Smart Africa board. Other speakers include Smart Africa Secretariat Director General, Lacina Kone, Rwandan Minister of ICT and Innovation, Paula Ingabire, and Zimbabwe’s Minister of ICT, Postal and Courier Services, Jenfan Muswere among others.

The inaugural Transform Africa Summit held in Kigali, Rwanda from 28 to 31 October 2013 culminated in the adoption of the Smart Africa Manifesto document by seven African heads of state namely Rwanda, Kenya, Uganda, South Sudan, Mali, Gabon, and Burkina Faso in which they committed to providing leadership in accelerating socio-economic development through ICT. The Smart Africa Alliance has since grown to include 36 African countries that represent 1.1 billion people.

Zimbabwe, which joined the Smart Africa Alliance in 2019, bid to host the event last year and a team from Rwanda visited the country last June to assess its suitability.

The American multinational hospitality company, Hilton Worldwide Holdings Inc is interested in setting up in Zimbabwe. This was revealed by the national tourism promotion body, the Zimbabwe Tourism Authority (ZTA), this week.

Posting on its website, the ZTA indicated that the global hospitality group had told its (ZTA’s) Chief Executive Officer, Winnie Muchanyuka of its intention to operate in Zimbabwe during the Hotel Investment Forum held from 2 to 4 November 2022 at Fairmount Taghazout Bay Agadir in Morocco.

“While at the conference, ZTA Chief Executive Officer, Winnie Muchanyuka and her team met with various stakeholders and potential investors. An engagement with world acclaimed Hilton Group was among the most fruitful as the team met with Samantha Muna, Hilton Development Director for East Africa, who confirmed the group’s commitment to operate in Zimbabwe saying they’re already on the ground and are looking forward to ZTA’s facilitation to connect to project promoters and partner,” read part of the post.

This is not the first time that the Hilton Group has been reported to be interested in setting up in Zimbabwe.

A report by the South African-based CAJ News in July this year highlighted that the Hilton Group had entered into a US$50 million deal with the City of Victoria Falls and Lamcent Capital to build a 120-room hotel in the resort city. Under the deal, the City of Victoria Falls would provide land, which is located next to the four-star Palm River Hotel that was opened in December 2021.

In Southern Africa, the Hilton Group already operates in Namibia, South Africa and Zambia. According to hotelmanagement.net, in 2018 Hilton’s portfolio had approximately 90 hotels operating and under construction across five brands in Africa. At the time the continent had about 39 Hilton-branded hotels, five of which were in South Africa.

Zimbabwe to host Transform Africa Summit

Hilton Group keen to operate in Zimbabwe