The Chartered Institute for Procurement and Supply (CIPS), in partnership with Professor Douglas Boateng and the PanAvest Foundation, will be hosting the 2015 Pan African Supply Chain Public Lecture Series in Ghana.

The event is slated to take place in Accra and Kumasi at the National Theatre and the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology on April 28 and 29, 2015 respectively.

Themed, "Were We Ever on the Same Page: Negotiate, Agree in Specificities, and then Contract.", the lectures will be delivered by Professor Douglas Boateng, Africa’s first Professor Extraordinaire in Supply and Value Chain Management, and chairman of CIPS’s African Advisory Board, as part of his Pan African quasi-academic and industrial social responsibility initiative.

The lectures will shed light on some of the reasons why a relative lack of negotiation on the continent is hampering, amongst other things, region-wide service delivery, organizational value chain performance and competitiveness, and a broader socio-economic development.

According to Professor Boateng “One of the most important, but often misunderstood aspects of supply chain management is negotiation. Contrary to popular belief, negotiation is not about price chiseling, rather it is the catalyst for building long term win-win relationships.”

“Appreciating negotiation’s strategic importance, and involving the right professionals from the outset can assist with achieving win-win value chain agreements and subsequent contracts,” he added.

Commenting on the collaboration, Mr. Andre Coetzee, Managing Director for CIPS Africa, said, “This 1 series has been running successfully since 2012. And we are delighted to once again partner with Professor Douglas Boateng on these strategically important skills development lectures. This joint initiative aims to create more awareness on how negotiations could be a game changer for the continent.”

Private and public sector executives, government employees, accountants and finance officers, politicians, procurement officers, logistics and supply chain management practitioners, human resources personnel, scientists, doctors, agriculturalists, health and education service personnel, lawyers, consultants, administrators, policy makers, planners, ICT personnel, media practitioners, non-governmental organizational executives, trainers and academics, marketers, engineers, surveyors, and project managers, among others are welcome to participate in the free and open public lectures.

The upcoming public lectures are recognized by both the UK’s Chartered Institute of Procurement and Supply, and the Institute of Operations Management ? as part of their Continuous Professional Development (CPD) initiatives in Africa.

Succeeding lecture series will also be held in Kampala, Uganda on May 8, and Johannesburg, South Africa on May 14.

Dates and times for the KwaZulu-Natal, and Cape Town (South Africa), Nairobi (Kenya), and Lagos (Nigeria) legs of the series will be finalized, following consultations with local representatives.

Seats for the lecture series are available on a strictly first come, first reserved basis. Interested parties should contact their local CIPS offices/branches for more information.