Global Business School Network Focuses on Human Infrastructure Development

July 13, 2005—One of the IFC’s lesser-known initiatives was a subject of discussions in Scotland on the sidelines to last week’s G-8 summit in Gleneagles (see The Abertay Conversation).

The Global Business School Network (GBSN) aims to strengthen business education in the developing world with a first focus on Africa.  As highlighted in the report of the Commission for Africa, higher education is crucial for economic development.  At the recent World Economic Forum Africa Summit, the GBSN was identified as a program which is working.

Two years ago, the IFC launched a new initiative to strengthen business schools in developing countries through linkages with established business schools in developed countries.  The vision was big and, at the time, implementation seemed daunting.

The team involved, however, has succeeded not only in launching the GBSN but putting the new initiative squarely on the both the development and academic agendas.  Today, GBSN is building a community of shared knowledge in management, leadership, and entrepreneurship, spanning rich and poor countries as well as mobilizing and coordinating resources to build management education capacity in developing countries.

Expanding the reach of education

“GBSN is working because it is addressing unmet needs,” says Guy Pfeffermann, Director of the GBSN.  “Previously, development efforts focused solely on primary and secondary education while higher education was largely ignored.”

GBSN harnesses the experience of several of the world’s top business schools in support of capacity-building for developing country business schools. The goal is to strengthen the networks between all of these schools, building productive and long-term partnerships.

Strong local business schools can also have a positive impact on the local investment climate, helping to attract foreign direct investment.  GBSN programs also provide vehicles for dialogue between academia, government and the private sector.  In addition, GBSN programs are addressing training for entrepreneurs, supporting the creation and growth of more competitive small and medium enterprises.

Pilot programs were launched in 2004 in four countries: Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana, and South Africa, host for a pan-African program.  The programs were designed in collaboration with local schools with input from the GBSN network and outside experts.

The pilot programs have three key goals:
 
(a) to enhance the capacity of pilot schools to provide high-quality, sustainable programs in management and leadership training;

(b) to share best practices and build transferable models in management education and training; and

(c) to create a network between business schools and the surrounding business community so as to maximize the impact of skills and knowledge available at the local level.
The programs were designed to test different approaches to enhancing management education and training in Africa including:

“training-of-trainers” in interactive, case-based teaching methods, with an emphasis on the generation of local case studies; 

• building capacity in entrepreneurship and small business management training for local small and medium enterprises; 
• business school curriculum and course development; and
• institutional quality improvement and accreditation. GBSN has been also asked to help in a number of other countries and is partnering with the International Development Association (IDA) on Micro Small and Medium Enterprise (MSME) projects in Kenya and Tanzania as well as a private sector development (PSD) project in Ethiopia.

Enriching the faculty

Faculty development remains a key constraint for many African business schools with demand for programs outpacing their supply of trained faculty. Practice-based or case method teaching is internationally recognized as an effective method of teaching many of the concepts and decision-making skills critical to business education.

To disseminate best practices in business teaching throughout Africa, the GBSN helped the Gordon Institute of Business Science, in partnership with Lagos Business School and other network schools, to develop a case method teaching workshop in South Africa for faculty across the continent.  The first program took place in mid-May 2005 and will be run again next year.

Meanwhile, a peer support network has been created for African business faculty who use discussion-based, practice-oriented teaching methods.  The GBSN sponsored a similar case teaching and writing workshop for business schools in Kenya with support from the IDA-financed MSME Competitiveness Project.  Case studied developed through the project will focus on enterprises operating in Kenya’s MSME sector.

In other recent developments, the GBSN and the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA) hosted the first meeting of leaders of African Business Schools.  The meeting resulted in a commitment from the schools to create a regional business school association, with a main focus on quality improvement issues.

Stephen Adei, rector of GIMPA, commented, “This meeting [was] an important step for African business education.  Never before have the leaders of business Schools from across Africa come together to share ideas in this manner.” 

This will also provide African business schools with a voice in international forums as well as the opportunity to work collectively on critical initiatives to enhance management, leadership, and entrepreneurship education in Africa.  Already the group has reconvened, most recently in Senegal last month, to discuss strategies for formalizing their collaboration.

Of his school’s experience through the GBSN pilot program in Kenya, Meoli Kashorda, dean of the USIU School of Administration, said, “Now we can draw on the intellectual resources of the more experienced faculty in these schools” participating in the network.  “Good business management education can make a big difference and the local businesses are telling us that.”

For further information about GBSN, see:  www.ifc.org/gbsn