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EVENT OVERVIEW

23/24th October 2006, Johannesburg South Africa

Venue: Hilton Hotel Sandton, 138 Rivonia Road, Sandton, South Africa 2146.  To visit venue kindly click here

OVERVIEW

The problems of human resources and skills development was one of the key areas addressed at the G8 meeting held on the 8th July 2005, Also the need to increase Africa’s human resources capacity to enable economic growth was highlighted in the Commission for Africa Report. Shortage of skills is the greatest threat to Africa, to achieve in the Millennium Development Goals (MDG’S) and Sustainable Development.

The implementation of an e-HR strategy can have far reaching benefit including service delivery, better productivity and cost savings. The lack of ready access to Information Communication Technology (ICT) is a multi-faceted and growing phenomenon which impacts development at many levels- social, economic, civic and cultural and relates to a wide range of developmental priorities and concerns. e-HR has emerged as a sustained trend and source of much innovation at both strategic and operational levels. e-HR is the use of conventional information technology and web-enabled technologies to HR systems and deliveries.

ICT enables Human Resource Practitioners in Africa access to information, best practices, concepts and processes such as streamlining their recruitment and selection process which is of added value in building and retaining skills in Africa, it also drives down the cost of HR services delivery.

The challenges faced by organisations are both varied and dynamic and these include:

• Marginalization of Africa in the global Information Technology (IT) arena.
• Absence of integration of reform strategies with Human Resources Management Systems;
• Loss of critical skills through migration
• Reduced ability to attract skills beyond its local environment
• Delayed and prolonged recruitment process thereby losing some of the best skills to a more proactive West
• Poor information and knowledge management
  
  

THE RATIONALE

Strong human resource capacity is needed for the member states to address existing development constraints and face the challenges of a globalised economy. Strong capacity to plan, adequately monitor their impacts is key to a country’s ability to adopt new technologies, adjust to and maximize new information, and to position itself to harness the opportunities offered by the global economy. This challenge is particularly important to a region that lacks a critical mass of development planners to plan, formulate and implement programmes and initiatives an effective manner.