Together with its corporate and development partners, the Sterling One Foundation is excited to announce that it will be holding the second edition of the Africa Social Impact Summit (ASIS) in Lagos, Nigeria, on the 10th and 11th of August, 2023.
The Foundation, along with its partners, is thrilled to once again hold African leaders and development experts across the government, public, private, and civil society sectors to share progress insights, knowledge, and further galvanise impact investment for more sustainable solutions. This comes after the effective execution of some of the solutions put ahead to tackle key African challenges at the inaugural edition.
Launched in 2022, the Africa Social Impact Summit (ASIS) symbolises an action plan towards the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals in Africa. This is accomplished through the successful collaboration of every stakeholder within the African development ecosystem to accomplish market-led solutions for the growth of the continent, favourable regulations that support them, and investments that help them grow.
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The impact of the summit
The SDGs are a set of 17 goals that aim to end extreme poverty, protect the environment, and ensure prosperity for all people on the planet by 2030. Over 3,000 people from 66 different countries signed up to attend the Summit, and the Deal Room featured pitches from 13 entrepreneurs representing four different African nations. Matthias Schmale, the United Nations Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in Nigeria, emphasised the need for Africa to enthusiastically begin to focus greater focus on the most susceptible in the society as they are most severely impacted by the growing unemployment, spiralling inflation, climate change, and insufficient access to quality education and health services. Schmale delivered his keynote address at the first edition of the Summit.
This issue along with other concerns brought up by key experts and thought leaders available at the inaugural Summit caused the selection of a central theme for this year’s edition, to be, “Global Vision, Local Action: Repositioning The African Development Ecosystem For Sustainable Outcomes”. This theme is focused on ways to improve what African innovators are currently doing, and discovering ways to make impact on investing on the continent more catalytic and scalable.
Remarks of the CEO of Sterling One Foundation
Olapeju Ibekwe, CEO of the Sterling One Foundation, elaborated on the significance of the topic by stating that progress on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) can only be made when partnerships are prioritised and formed in a manner that focuses on the long-term and strives to remove the numerous obstacles to true progress. Ibekwe was speaking in reference to the significance of the theme. “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 continued.
A hybrid event will be hosted by ASIS in 2023, just as it was the year before. This event will include keynote presentations, panel conversations, exhibitions, and a Deal Room for impact-focused entrepreneurs operating across Africa. In addition, the Summit will include seminars for organisations that are part of civil society, a roundtable discussion on environmental, social, and governance (ESG), a variety of discussions with leaders from the commercial sector and other players, and several other side events.
Changemakers who are interested in attending the Summit can do so by booking a seat through the website www.theimpactsummit.org.