Cameroon’s ENAM is reaching a historic milestone by entrusting Dr Guy Gweth, President of the African Center for Competitive Intelligence (CAVIE), with the teaching of augmented competitive intelligence. This pioneering initiative equips the future administrative and judicial elite with strategic decision-making tools to address global challenges. It represents a major step towards global competitiveness and more effective public governance.
In Africa, as on other continents, today’s global environment requires States to structurally adapt their administrative and judicial systems to increasingly intense international competition and the accelerated circulation of information. According to the African Center for Competitive Intelligence (CAVIE), the major challenge lies in the ability of African States to overcome their vulnerabilities in order to safeguard their economic independence and sustainably optimize the governance of their resources.
A HISTORIC INTEGRATION INTO ELITE TRAINING
After a decade of sustained efforts and an expansion across thirty-eight countries, CAVIE officially gained the mandate to teach practical and augmented competitive intelligence at ENAM from the third quarter of 2026. This process was marked by a keynote inaugural lecture delivered by Dr Guy Gweth on August 14, 2026, in the institution’s Grand Amphitheatre. Focusing on “The Critical Issues of Competitive Intelligence in Africa,” the lecture brought together hundreds of students from all divisions, sections and fields of study around legal intelligence as a tool for public and judicial decision-making.
ALIGNMENT WITH THE PRINCIPLES OF NEW PUBLIC MANAGEMENT
This academic development is fully aligned with New Public Management (NPM), a reform approach that draws on private-sector efficiency methods to strengthen public services. By training future administrators and magistrates to collect, process and secure information relevant to decision-making, ENAM is equipping the State apparatus with essential tools for greater responsiveness and adaptability.
Guy Gweth stresses the urgency for public authorities to move from a purely reactive administration to a strategic administration capable of anticipating risks, protecting data and accurately identifying partnership opportunities. This proactive shift directly responds to the performance requirements of NPM, where the achievement of measurable objectives through KPIs requires a strong command of competitive and regulatory environments.
NEUTRALIZING AFRICA’S INFORMATION ASYMMETRY
Although the continent has undeniable assets, including exceptional natural resources, a dynamic youth population and a domestic market boosted by the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), it remains weakened by institutional instability and infrastructure deficits. The most formidable and often underestimated obstacle remains information asymmetry, an imbalance that can cause a resource-rich State to lose decisive negotiations to counterparts with better command of strategic data.
Teaching competitive intelligence through an internationally recognized practitioner helps address this weakness by establishing rigorous strategic, legal and financial intelligence systems. Far from resembling espionage, this is a lawful process aimed at structuring networks of observers, experts and decision-makers capable of transforming raw knowledge into a competitive advantage for the nation-State.
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AT THE SERVICE OF PUBLIC EFFICIENCY
In line with the constant drive to optimize costs and resources promoted by public management reforms, the programme introduced by CAVIE, whose syllabus was officially validated in early August 2026, emphasizes new technologies adapted to the local ecosystem.
Modern African competitive intelligence also relies on endogenous artificial intelligence to automate repetitive tasks, accelerate data synthesis and detect weak signals, while requiring rigorous ethical interpretation by human intelligence. To support this dynamic, CAVIE’s recommendations to ENAM include greater digitalization of the school’s administration, broader access to the internet for academic stakeholders, and the creation of specific certification programmes for serving senior public officials in OSINT, human intelligence, intelligence monitoring, due diligence, strategic intelligence, compliance, influence and counter-influence.
TOWARDS ASSUMED SOVEREIGNTY AND NEW PERSPECTIVES
The incorporation of geopolitics and augmented competitive intelligence into ENAM’s curricula goes far beyond a simple academic update. In the current context, this initiative marks the starting point for a comprehensive overhaul of the State’s decision-making capabilities in Africa.
By equipping future leaders with the skills needed to decode competing strategies and deploy an authentically African smart power, this small academic step sets in motion the construction of an augmented public administration, fully prepared to safeguard sovereignty, regulation and the continent’s global competitiveness.
The Editorial Team