The European Union is building on earlier efforts to strengthen and diversify the African economy by working with the private sector on measures designed to boost ICT and network infrastructure, according to E.U. officials.

Although the African Union's economy has grown more than 5 percent per year over the last few years, the continent continues to be marginalized, said E.U. officials at the ICT Best Practices Forum event in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, last week.

"In an increasingly globalized world, Africa accounts for the only about 2 percent of the world trade and its share of global manufactured exports is almost negligible," noted European Development and Humanitarian Aid Commissioner Louis Michel in an address at the forum.

Without increased economic growth and private investment, few African countries will have the sustainable revenue they need to deliver basic services such as education and health care, he said.

"We support African efforts to achieve macroeconomic stability, the creation of regional markets and an appropriate climate," Michel said.

The E.U., for example, helped support attendance at the forum of NGOs (nongovernmental organizations) and small and medium-size enterprises from across Africa. The E.U. paid for delegates' air transport and per diem expenses, according to Amadou Traore, the E.U. policy desk officer for private sector development. The intention was to develop a dialogue between public and private stakeholders in the African economy and foster plans for best-practices implementation programs, he said.

Partnerships with private sector companies such as Microsoft are an important part of the E.U.'s initiatives, officials noted.

Microsoft was one of the first companies to join the EU-Africa Business Forum -- chartered by the European Commission and the African Union Commission to promote trade and development -- when it was launched in November 2006. Microsoft's chairman for Africa, Cheick Modibo Diarra, has headed the initiative's ICT working group since its inception. He was recently appointed as co-chair of the initiative, along with John Grant, the president of the European unit of BHP Billiton, the world's largest mining company.

The IDG News Service is a Network World affiliate.