Hanover, N.H., May 8, 2006 -
The Center for International Business at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth recently hosted a meeting of the International Finance Corporation’s Global Business School Network Academic Advisory Council. Representatives from more than 20 of the world’s leading business schools—including Columbia, Harvard, HEC Paris, IESE, IMD, MIT, and Tuck—participated in the meeting.
IFC’s Global Business School Network (GBSN) aims to strengthen the skills of managers in emerging markets by expanding opportunities for management education and training in these countries. Partnering with a network of business schools around the world, the GBSN is working to enhance the institutional capacity of business schools in emerging markets so that they can provide a stronger pool of management skills to local and regional firms, including small and medium enterprises.
“Nearly 3 billion people worldwide live on less than $2 a day, and only 9 percent of the population in low-income countries attends university,” said Joseph Massey, director of the Center for International Business at Tuck. “We believe that even the least-developed countries have a bright future and will work together with our colleagues and institutions to share ideas and expertise with emerging market business schools, whose programs will shape tomorrow’s global leaders.”
The GBSN acts as a facilitator, identifying needs at the local level, forging links between emerging market business schools and appropriate partner schools, structuring projects, and creating a network for the sharing of best practices. The GBSN also links schools in emerging markets with each other. Enabling communication and sharing of experience between these schools can bring substantial benefits to the institutions, their students, and their local communities.
“The GBSN offers an opportunity to broaden and deepen the pool of competent managers for businesses, NGOs, health providers, and others in some of the poorest countries. Concrete results in Africa after the first two years of GBSN pilot programs are impressive. Our innovative networking approach has proved quite effective in these capacity-building efforts. Governments, aid agencies, indeed the development literature of the past 50 years virtually ignore management as a crucial factor in employment creation. We hope our effort will put management education squarely on the development agenda,” said Guy Pfeffermann, director of the GBSN.
The GBSN is initially focusing its efforts on Africa, where it has partnered with ten African institutions in seven countries—including Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa—on programs such as teacher training, case study development, and entrepreneurial management training.
The GBSN’s Academic Advisory Council was set up to provide input and feedback about activities and programs. “We very much appreciate the time and valuable contributions of the faculty who have been advising us and particularly those who have been actively working with us in Africa,” said Mr. Pfeffermann. “We are also grateful to Joe Massey, one of our advisors, and to Tuck for hosting our meeting, as these discussions have been quite valuable in helping plan future initiatives.”
The meeting in Hanover was a day-long working meeting, during which attendees received an overview and update on the GBSN and shared ideas on how to best pursue opportunities in developing countries. Participants assessed their past experiences in developing country initiatives, and representatives from the GBSN’s Africa Advisory Group shared perspectives from the business community on challenges and opportunities for business education in Africa.
Special guests from the developing world as well as representatives of companies active in participating countries also attended the meeting. The chairman of the recently established Association of African Business Schools and several governing board members attended the meeting to share their firsthand perspectives. The AABS was set up as the culmination of several GBSN-facilitated gatherings of deans of African business schools over the past two years. The association will support business schools through capacity-building, collaboration, and quality-improvement programs.
For more information about Tuck's international activities and commitment to the developing world, contact the Center for International Business at 603-646-0556 or visit
http://mba.tuck.dartmouth.edu/cib
.
Founded in 1900, Tuck was the first graduate school of management and consistently ranks among the top business schools worldwide. Information about the Tuck School is available at
www.tuck.dartmouth.edu
.
The mission of IFC (
www.ifc.org
)
is to promote sustainable private sector investment in emerging markets, helping to reduce poverty and improve people’s lives. IFC finances private sector investments in developing countries, mobilizes capital in the international financial markets, helps clients improve social and environmental sustainability, and provides technical assistance and advice to governments and businesses. From its founding in 1956 through FY05, IFC has committed more than $49 billion of its own funds and arranged $24 billion in syndications for 3,319 companies in 140 developing countries. IFC’s worldwide committed portfolio as of FY05 was $19.3 billion for its own account and $5.3 billion held for participants in loan syndications.
