Costed Action Plan for SADC Industrialization Strategy and Roadmap (ii) Once identified, cluster capabilities should be built and infrastructural needs be addressed. (iv) Targeted efforts should be deployed to promote entrepreneurship and promotion of enterprises that have potential for becoming globally competitive. (v) Provision of business support services to enhance competitiveness of SMEs, their ability to acquire and master technology and be eligible for appropriate financing. (vi) Develop a business-linkage programme for clusters, SMEs and value chain interaction. - Competitiveness SADC countries, with the notable exception of South Africa and Mauritius, rank poorly in the global competitiveness indices and the gap between the region and its comparators in Asia and Latin America is wide. The competitiveness lag straddles almost all areas of assessments, requiring an all-out effort to enhance abilities and capabilities and raise capital and labour productivities. Indeed, competitiveness in components and tasks, as distinct from comparative advantage in final products, is instrumental to value chain participation. Recommendations (i) SADC countries would need to develop and implement dedicated programmes to raise capabilities, in particular for enhancing education, innovation and entrepreneurship. (ii) Education is pivotal and would hence need to be oriented and repurposed to facilitate industrialization and overall transformation, notably through greater doses of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education and establishing strong partnerships with universities, research institutions and the private sector, creation/strengthening of Centres of Excellence and Centres of Specialization as well as through funding support. (iii) Innovation is a key component of knowledge-driven economies, hence the need for strong and sustainable national and regional innovation systems and the up-scaling of expenditure on R&D by both public and private sectors. (iv) Enhancing competitiveness would also require the creation of a businessfriendly and competitiveness-aware constituency. 140