Charting the Course for Sustainable Development

The Annual Africa Regional Meetings recently held in Cairo at the Hilton Heliopolis Hotel. The 4-day event, hosted by Egypt's UN Global Compact Network from the 6th to the 9th of November welcomed UN Global Compact teams from across Africa and beyond including South Africa, Mauritius, Tanzania, Botswana, Angola, DR Congo, Rwanda, Kenya, Nigeria, Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire, Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, Dubai, and New York, with a few connecting online.

The annual convening is an opportunity to pause from busy schedules and take stock of collective progress in driving sustainable development through the power of principled business. It also gives the team an opportunity to plan forward on strategies to scale up the UN Global Compact's work and deepen engagements with the private sector while leveraging partnerships across board.

The meetings aimed to expedite progress towards shared sustainable goals, thereby reaffirming the UN Global Compact's commitment to a more sustainable, inclusive, and prosperous Africa.

Day 1 focused on private sector responses to regional issues, emphasizing private sector response to natural causes, humanitarian crises, and a Global Strategy for Africa's advancement.

Day 2 delved into the Africa Strategy Refresh, exploring multi-stakeholder consultations that served as a guiding document strengthening the African voice through regional initiatives such as GABI and ABLC. A crucial session discussed the Global Strategy for Forward Faster, emphasizing top priority areas of the initiative; Climate Action, Living Wage, Gender Equality, water-resilience, and Finance and investment.

Key areas discussed include:

- How to activate private sector engagement to advance the region’s priorities from climate action to humanitarian crises

- The Africa Strategy, and how to strengthen the African voice through regional initiatives such as the Africa Business Leaders Coalition
- How to support companies to move Forward Faster on the SDGs focusing on key goals

Innovative Ideas:

Coming through from the sessions were innovative ideas for the extension of the Africa Strategy to 2025, nurturing the African Youth's creativity on SDGs, leveraging the immense digital transformative opportunities, engaging with businesses and governments in policy dialogue to target regulatory deadlocks, and moving Forward Faster to drive more ambitious change on SDGs.

Amidst these meetings, the team also embarked on enlightening explorative tours of Egypt’s rich culture, wonders, and history with a visit to the Pyramids and the national museum which showcased the contributions of ancient Egyptian civilization to the wonders we enjoy today.