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The United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) and the Enterprise Incubator Foundation (EIF) of Armenia — a former Soviet republic — have entered into a partnership to advance smart development in Africa and help the continent to achieve its 2063 Agenda and the UN’s 2030 sustainable development agenda.

The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed at Armenia’s Engineering Week, which held on June 24-28 and convened over 500 participants from around the world. The announcement came on the heels of the visit of Armenia’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Zohrab Mnatsakanyan, to the ECA and Ethiopia.

The ECA, in a statement released on Monday, said Mnatsakanyan had listed the areas of cooperation with the Commission when he visited. The highlighted areas include digital identification, digital trade and digital economy; enhancing ECA’s capacity for data collection; promotion of in-house innovation; support for Africa’s development agenda; policy-research work and activities with universities in biometric engineering; supporting the development of e-government payment processes and intellectual e-property rights.

The Acting Director of the ECA’s Division of Publication, Conference, Knowledge Management and ICT, Almoustapha Amadou Cisse, signed the MoU on behalf of the ECA, while the EIF’s Director, Bagrat Yengibaryan, signed for the EIF.

Cisse said Addis Ababa University has also signed an MoU with the EIF, and together, they have come up with a cooperation action plan. “The outlined efforts are aimed at joint implementation of the national engineering lab programme, which has been successful in Armenia, formation of an ecosystem of engineering startups and joint research,” Cisse said.

According to the statement, Armenia is a hub for software development, industrial computing, electronics, and production of semiconductors. The ICT sector plays a significant role in the country’s economy.

Established in 2002, the EIF supports the development of the ICT sector in Armenia by creating a productive environment for innovation and technological advancement. The main objectives of EIF include providing assistance in investment attraction, export promotion, and establishment of venture capital institute.

Mnatsakanyan said: “In the absence of natural resources, the government of Armenia focuses extensively on the concept of innovation and human resources development for its economic revolution agenda, thereby creating an optimum environment for people to capitalize on their generative capacity through research and development.”