FROM GENDER to information technology and privatisation, this week's Convention 2002, organised by the British council and The EastAfrican will address key contemporary challenges facing the running of business in Africa and beyond.

Management practitioners drawn from Malawi, Zambia, Kenya, Eritrea, Uganda, Ethiopia, Zimbabwe and Tanzania will lead the discussions at the Convention, to be held on March 5 and 6 at the Grand Regency Hotel, Nairobi. The regional speakers will be joined by two leading UK management theorists Mr Charles Handy, who will deliver the keynote speech, and Mr Allan Hooper, the moderator.

The Convention will be officially opened on Tuesday by Mr Wilfred Kiboro, the CEO of the Nation Media Group.

Kicking off the Convention's theme of "Leadership Challenges in East and Central Africa" will be Mrs Gloria Nsomba, head of marketing at Malawi Telecoms. Her paper, Leadership: Women in Business – Challenges, Solutions and Opportunities, explores the challenges that women face in the business world .

Mrs Nsomba argues that women face conflicting social demands and cultural prejudices that force potential women leaders to either change careers, drop out completely or limit opportunities for other women.

She sees development of support infrastructure as one of possible solutions and concludes that being first in the market can enable women to seize power more boldly, swiftly and firmly. Mrs Nsomba's paper will draw largely upon her experience in juggling her marketing career with family obligations, a key conflict facing African women professionals.

Mr Yusuf Dodia, a Zambian, will dwell on the power of teamwork, partnerships and inclusiveness – through sectoral associations – as one way of strengthening businesses. Mr Dodia is the head of Action Business and Management Consultants as well as Action Computer & Electronic Systems Ltd.

An engineering graduate, Mr Dodia is leading by example, being a founder member of the Private Sector Development Association soon to be launched in Zambia. Lack of information is seen as a key handicap facing managers in the region and Mr Joe Gichuki, the Kenya business development manager at Deloitte and Touche, will lead a discussion on how an information-starved region can excel in management.

Mr Gichuki argues that increasing interest in learning about management excellence is not matched by an equivalent increase in the amount of information available to managers., particularly market information used to make daily decisions. 

Within the region, he says, there is a greater tendency towards "guidepost" information – acquired from school and literature – rather than useful, industry specific and timely data which is publicly available in Western economies.

Competitive behaviour, advocates Mr Gichuki is a function of both strategic learning and daily information, factors that managers in Southeast Asia have operated successfully under constraints comparable to those in the region.

Mr Gichuki was general manager of the Small Enterprises Professional Services Organisation, a consulting unit set up to assist small businesses in management and also writes for The EastAfrican.

The challenges and best practices of business management in a hostile environment will form the thrust of the presentation by Mr Ghebremedhin Haile, of Eritrea, in the hope that other businesses under similar situations would use such practices.

Mr Haile, a business consultant who holds an MBA in marketing, uses case studies to advocate management styles based on local reality, an approach influenced by the travails of war and drought that Eritrea has recently undergone. 

Irrespective of the management style adopted, Mr Japheth Katto, the chief executive officer of Uganda's Capital Markets Authority, uses the collapse of banks in Uganda to argue that good corporate governance is a prerequisite for successful management in a global economy. 

Drawing heavily from the status of corporate governance in Uganda and trends in the region, Mr Katto argues the case for privatisation and liberalisation, saying it has forced a shift from mere governance to good corporate management practices.

Competition has further led to more innovation and consumer care fulfilling three key objectives of modern management – increasing shareholder value, consumer satisfaction and social responsibility. 

Mr Katto has written various articles and presented papers on management, finance capital markets and regional integration at regional and global fora. A

Also discussing the topic will be Mr Manu Chandaria, the chairman of Kenya's Comcraft Group and East Africa's Most Respected CEO, this time dwelling on corporate responsibility.

Mr Berhane Mewa of Ethiopia will look into his crystal ball, looking at how changing socio-economic conditions will affect business management this century and beyond. Mr Mewa, a board member of Lem Ethiopia, an environment and development society, is interested in how businesses are adapting to a global economy after years of operating under a command economy. 

Despite an economy adapting to globalisation, adverse weather conditions, the upheaval and turmoil of war, evaluates the measures taken by the relatively successful enterprises, the challenges they face and their achievements.

The political turmoil in Zimbabwe presents Ms Tracy Mutaviri, the dean of the Faculty of Commerce at the University of Zimbabwe, with an opportunity to put into perspective the survival strategies that managers can adopt under unsettled circumstances. 

In view of the negative trends that have come to characterise business environments in Africa, Ms Mutaviri focuses on how best corporate policies can be adjusted to the prevailing environment.

Tanzania's Ms Sarah Mmari takes the gender issue farther, looking at the factors that affect accessibility and retention of Tanzanian women in the workforce. Ms Mmari is a corporate relationship manager with Barclays Bank, Tanzania. 

Mr Robert Kabushenga, the corporation secretary for The New Vision Publications will address the challenges of managing a state-owned enterprise in a competitive environment, based on Uganda's experience. 

The chief executive officer of First Mutual Life Assurance Society of Zimbabwe, Mr Norman Sachikonye, will focus on macroeconomic variables, including escalating commodity prices and how some businesses have coped.