Sustainable Growth in Africa: Leveraging ESG Standards and Tech for Market Readiness
Sustainable Growth in Africa: Leveraging ESG Standards and Tech for Market Readiness
Panelists at the ABF2025 17 February 2025 ©United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA)
The Africa Business Forum 2025 (ABF), held on 17 February in Addis Ababa and organised by the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), brought together thought leaders and stakeholders to explore pathways for transforming Africa’s regional value chains. A key focus was the roundtable discussion titled Achieving Sustainability and Standards Compliance: Unlocking African Value Chains for Local and Global Markets. Dr Hervé Lado, Africa Head, United Nations Global Compact, joined a distinguished panel including Dr. Debo Akande of the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA); Ms. Serah Makka of the ONE Campaign in Africa; Amb. Albert Mudenda Muchanga of the African Union Commission (AUC); Dr. Hermogène Nsengimana of the African Organisation for Standardisation (ARSO); and Dr. Sylvia Vito of Eva Pharma. Together, they emphasised the critical role of technology in advancing sustainability, driving efficiency, and enhancing global market readiness across key sectors such as leather, minerals, pharmaceuticals, and agriculture.
Dr. Lado highlighted the transformative potential of the Ten Principles of the UN Global Compact
and the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
in empowering African businesses, particularly SMEs, to thrive in emerging markets. He underscored how these principles—spanning human rights, labour, environment, and anti-corruption—provide a robust framework for aligning with universal sustainability standards. Through adoption of these principles, African SMEs can build trust, ensure compliance, and enhance their competitiveness in global markets while contributing to sustainable development. This alignment strengthens market readiness and positions SMEs as key players in driving efficiency and innovation across critical sectors.
For African SMEs, adopting these principles is a strategic advantage. Embedding sustainability into core operations improves reputation, attracts ethical investors, and opens access to international markets. The Ten Principles also serve as a foundation for achieving the SDGs, creating synergy between corporate responsibility and global development objectives.
A major challenge for African businesses is aligning with international Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) standards, traceability, and quality requirements, which are critical for accessing global markets and securing financing. The UN Global Compact’s framework offers a roadmap for African SMEs to meet these demands while fostering innovation and resilience. For instance, adherence to ESG principles can unlock green financing and ethical supply chains, while traceability standards ensure transparency and accountability. These standards can emphasized position businesses as reliable partners in global value chains, from agriculture and mining to pharmaceuticals and manufacturing.
Technological innovations such as blockchain, artificial intelligence (AI), and green technologies are transforming African business operations. Blockchain enhances supply chain transparency, AI streamlines quality control, and green technologies drive sustainable production. These advancements enable African SMEs to compete globally, meet compliance requirements, reduce costs, improve efficiency, and contribute to sustainable development.
As engines of innovation and job creation, African SMEs are central to the continent’s economic transformation and the achievement of the SDGs. With the alignment of the Ten Principles, SMEs can advance goals such as poverty reduction, gender equality, climate action, and sustainable industrialization. Their emergence in global markets presents a unique opportunity to drive inclusive growth. Through the right support, these businesses can scale operations, adopt sustainable practices, and access global markets, creating a ripple effect that benefits entire communities.
The Africa Business Forum 2025 underscored the transformative potential of aligning African value chains with global sustainability standards. The Ten Principles and the SDGs provide a clear pathway for African SMEs to enhance competitiveness, streamline compliance, and contribute to sustainable development. As Africa rises as a global economic powerhouse, integrating sustainability and technology will be key to unlocking its full potential, paving the way for a future where sustainability and competitiveness coexist and reinforce each other.
As digital transformation continues to shape Africa’s economic landscape, the Global Africa Business Initiative (GABI) convened top public and private sector leaders at the Africa CEO Forum on 12 May 2025. The high-level GABI Bridge session focused on accelerating investment, collaboration, and aligning policy to support Africa’s digital advancement. Held under the theme “Connect. Empower. Prosper: The Big Push for Digital Africa” , the GABI Bridge side event brought together decision-makers from government, industry, finance, and technology to address how Africa can build inclusive digital infrastructure, develop innovation ecosystems, and unlock scalable opportunities in the digital economy. In her opening remarks, Sanda Ojiambo , Assistant Secretary-General and Executive Director of the United Nations Global Compact, emphasized the need for collective ambition: “Africa’s digital future must be inclusive, sustainable, and African-led. This is not just a technological imperative – it’s an economic and social necessity. By investing in digital infrastructure, skilling our youth, and promoting innovation ecosystems, we empower Africa to lead in the Fourth Industrial Revolution.” The GABI Bridge concluded with a clear mandate: turn commitments into investments, partnerships into scalable platforms, prioritizing locally led tech innovation and digital ambition into measurable outcomes. Learn more on the GABI Bridge press release.
UN Global Compact at the 2025 Africa CEO Forum: State, Private Sector Collaboration, Key to Sustainable Development in Africa.
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On the eve of the Africa CEO Forum, the UN Global Compact will host a Networking Cocktail in Abidjan to bring together business leaders from its participating companies and its partners from across Africa, including Côte d’Ivoire. Leveraging the presence in Abidjan of the Assistant Secretary General and CEO of the UN Global Compact, Ms Sanda Ojiambo , this exclusive and high level gathering will provide invitees with a unique opportunity to connect, collaborate, and build relationships ahead of the Forum around corporate sustainability and the role of the UN Global Compact in the acceleration of the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) with the private sector in Africa and in Cote d’Ivoire. With an expected turnout of 100 invitees, the evening will offer a relaxed setting to foster meaningful conversations and lay the groundwork for sustainable businesses and impacts in Africa. 📅 Sunday, May 11, 2025, 7.00-9.00 PM 📍 Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire Free Event but upon invitation.
Kampala Declaration calls for scaling up Forward Faster initiative across Africa To accelerate progress towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in Africa, the United Nations Global Compact hosted the SDGs Activation Day earlier this week as part of its Forward Faster Now Africa initiative. The SDG Activation Day served as the private sector space within the 11th Africa Regional Forum on Sustainable Development (ARFSD-11) held 7–11 April. With the theme, “Moving Forward Faster Now on the SDGs with African Businesses,” the SDG Activation Day brought together CEOs, corporate sustainability professionals, private sector leaders as well as representatives from Governments, policymakers, UN officials and other stakeholders from across Africa for high-level discussions. With only 17 per cent of SDG targets on track for 2030 , the UN Global Compact launched its Forward Faster initiative in 2023 to mobilize ambitious corporate action in high-impact areas: gender equality, living wage, water resilience, climate action and sustainable finance. Forward Faster calls on business leaders everywhere to drive companies to take measurable, credible and ambitious action in 5 areas that have the power to accelerate progress across all 17 SDGs where the private sector can collectively make the biggest, fastest impact by 2030. Opening discussions, Sanda Ojiambo, CEO and Executive Director of the UN Global Compact , emphasized the critical role of private businesses in achieving the 2030 Agenda: “To achieve the Africa that we all want, we know that we need forward thinkers – bold private sector leaders committed to working together and alongside Governments and civil society. Our UN Global Compact Forward Faster initiative is designed to guide and support business leaders and companies in areas where the business community is best equipped to scale sustainable business and sustainable development. These companies tell us that joining Forward Faster has helped shape company strategy, increase visibility, and build public trust, as well as get ahead of new regulations.” The convening highlighted the urgent need for businesses to take action, inspiring participants to raise their ambitions. Through dedicated sessions on gender equality, sustainable finance and living wage, attendees heard tangible examples from leading African companies, facilitating peer learning to share best practices. In each session, attendees explored innovative approaches to enhance private sector engagement in sustainability, especially actions that businesses can take now, without any need for additional resources. In his remarks, Antonio Pedro, Deputy Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), urged business leaders to act decisively, noting that with the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) unlocking the potential of a $3.4 trillion market, the opportunities to harness Africa’s potential are immense if done inclusively and sustainably. “The private sector is no bystander; it is indispensable to job creation, innovation, and ultimately, prosperity for all Africans,” Pedro said. “We must move beyond visions, declarations, and plans— beyond even conferences—and translate these commitments into concrete action.” The Kampala Declaration, the outcome document of the ARFSD-11, included a call for incentivizing private sector investments aligned with the SDGs and for scaling up the Forward Faster initiative in Africa to accelerate progress on the SDGs and the African Union’s Agenda 2063. Key discussions on driving SDGs action. On sustainable finance, SDG Activation Day participants discussed how innovative public-private-partnerships (PPPs) can serve as a way to collaboratively create transformative impact. Financial services executives also shared how capital can be mobilized towards the SDGs, sharing learnings on risk management, blended finance and financial inclusion. During the gender equality session, private sector leaders shared how they were able to move the needle within their organizations through recruitment, retention, procurement and male allyship. On living wages, participants called for cross-sector collaboration—from policy and awareness to research and technical support to ensure fair pay that lifts workers out of poverty and fuels economic growth. Members of the Africa Business Leaders Coalition (ABLC) highlighted how collective action is a multiplier for impact. Leaders shared how the ABLC has already mobilized nearly 5 billion USD for climate action and centred the importance of promoting women’s economic inclusion with the ABLC Gender Statement . The ARFSD is an annual inter-governmental and multi-stakeholder platform mandated to review progress in the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and Agenda 2063, while identifying and promoting interventions to accelerate implementation of the two Agendas, and generating Africa’s regional inputs to the High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF) and other major national, regional, and global meetings. The African private sector has embraced the sustainable development agenda and the UN Global Compact now counts more than 1,100 participants in the region. To date, more than 115 companies in Africa have made 585 specific commitments to deliver meaningful progress by 2030. We all call on African businesses of all sizes to commit to one or more forward faster targets. For those who are not yet Global Compact participants, learn more about joining the world’s largest corporate sustainability initiative HERE. Click here to see visuals from the forum.
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Join the SDGs Activation Day at Forward Faster Now Africa
