Sterling One Foundation announces 2nd edition of the Africa Social Impact
Sterling One Foundation says it’s pleased to announce that it will collaborate with corporate and development partners to host the second edition of the Africa Social Impact Summit (ASIS) between the 10th and 11th of August 2023, in Lagos, Nigeria.
Following the successful implementation of some of the solutions put forward to tackle key African challenges at the inaugural edition, the Foundation and its partners are excited to reconvene African leaders and development experts across the government, public, private, and civil society sectors to share progress insights and knowledge and further spur impact investment for more sustainable solutions.
Launched in 2022, the Africa Social Impact Summit (ASIS) represents a direct action towards the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals in Africa through the effective collaboration of all key players within the African development ecosystem to achieve market-led solutions for the growth of the continent, favourable policies that support them, and investments that help them scale. The Summit hosted over 3,000 delegates from 66 countries and had 13 entrepreneurs from 4 African countries pitch at the Deal Room.
While delivering his keynote address at the maiden edition of the Summit, the United Nations Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in Nigeria, Matthias Schmale, highlighted the need for Africa to eagerly begin to focus more attention on the most vulnerable in society as they are the most hit by the growing unemployment, spiralling inflation, climate change and insufficient access to quality education and health services.
This concern and similar concerns raised by key experts and thought leaders present at the inaugural Summit led to the selection of a central theme for this year’s edition, “Global Vision, Local Action: Repositioning The African Development Ecosystem For Sustainable Outcomes,” which focuses on tactics to improve on what African innovators are currently doing, and finding ways to make impact investment on the continent more catalytic and scalable.
Speaking to the significance of the theme, CEO of the Sterling One Foundation, Olapeju Ibekwe explained that progress will only be made on the SDGs when partnerships are prioritised, and built in a manner that focuses on the long-term and seeks to remove the various bottlenecks to real progress.
“It is easier to resolve issues of unstructured governance to SDGs, lack of access to reliable data, transparency and accountability issues if development partnership is built across board, with all players involved and geared towards the same goal. This is what we hope to achieve at the end of the Summit,” she added.
Like the previous year, ASIS 2023 will be a hybrid event and feature keynote addresses, panel conversations, exhibitions and a Deal Room for impact-focused entrepreneurs across Africa. In addition, the Summit will feature workshops for civil society organisations, an environmental, social and governance (ESG) roundtable, different sessions between private sector leaders and other players, and several other side events.
