The fourth session of the Africa Business Forum is scheduled to take place online on Monday 8th February 2021, on the margins of the thirty-fourth ordinary session of the Assembly of Heads of State and Government of the African Union.
This year’s session will be held under the theme ‘Innovative finance: building forward to the Sustainable Development Goals’.
In 2021, owing to the unprecedented coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, the event will be held online and will run for half a day.
“In the wake of the unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic, Africa is facing a severe threat to its growth achieved over the last decade.
“The pandemic is global, but the continuing resilience of the African region highly depends on the strategies and policies countries adopt now”.
The Africa Union stated that the resilience of the Africa region can be boosted by building on recent initiatives to accelerate economic growth to meet national development aspirations in line with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the African Union’s Agenda 2063.
More critical to the above is to do so in a financially and environmentally sustainable manner.
The forum is expected to attract people from diverse fields across the African continent.
Participants for the session will include Government representatives and policymakers; Corporate and business executives; Leading investors; Financial institution executives; Researchers and think-tank members; Civil society representatives; Academia; Thought leaders; Youth representatives, and Journalists & broadcasters.
The African Union entreats all to “join the conversation and be part of the solutions for a more prosperous Africa”.
The Africa Business Forum is convened each year in Addis Ababa, the diplomatic capital of Africa, on the margins of the ordinary session of the Assembly of Heads of State and Government of the African Union.
The annual sessions of this Forum are intended to promote a continuing dialogue between the African private and public sector on current matters of strategic importance to the African continent.
The Africa Business Forum provides a unique platform for leaders, strategists, thinkers, innovators, and private sector businesses to bring together African Heads of State and Government and major business fraternity on the continent; and to discuss the role of the private sector in the African development agenda.
It will also create a platform for exploring thematic cutting edge and innovative ideas for financing sustainable development in Africa; Forge partnerships between African private and public sectors, and optimize collective efforts to achieve Agenda 2063: The Africa We Want, of the African Union and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
Previous sessions of the Forum have included the Africa Business and Investment Forum, held in early 2018; the Africa Business: Health Forum, in 2019; and the Africa Business Forum: Investing in People, Planet and Prosperity, in 2020.
Last year, in one of the sessions of the roundtable discussions under Innovative Finance and Health, it was revealed that the continental out of pocket expenditure averaged 36 percent of total expenditure with an annual total health financing gap of $66 billion.
Even though there are some improvements, health outcomes in Africa over the last 15 years present some recurring challenges of an overstretched health financing scheme.
“The sustainability of health financing systems is further exacerbated by increasing population growth, urbanization and expanding middle class as well as the changing life patterns resulting in the rise of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) and associated increasing demands and cost for medicines”.
