The United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), through its Sub regional Office for West Africa, has announced its invitation to sector champions in various industries to be a part of Regional Business Forum structured around high-level meetings, consultations with Business Champions, the youth and women in the West African business ecosystems.
The 3-day Forum will be held in Lagos, Nigeria from September 21st – 23rd, 2021, at The Intercontinental Hotel, Victoria Island, Lagos, using a hybrid format i.e. physical and virtual, due to COVID-19
The Regional Business Forum will be held in collaboration with strategic partners from across the region/Continent at, bringing together women and youth from across the 15 West African countries, business leaders, the private sector, and SMEs. The forum is set to encompass various activities such as panel discussions, exhibitions, mentoring sessions, presentations and many more.
The West Africa Business Forum is the first edition in a series of stakeholders’ engagements by the Economic Commission for Africa with top business leaders, and sector champions in Africa. The theme of the first ever forum is “Empowering Women and Youths to Spur Africa’s Transformation Agenda”.
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With Africa being the youngest continent and a projection of Africans constituting a whooping quarter of the world’s labour force by 2050 due to high fertility and declining child mortality rates, it has become imperative to pivot the continent’s demographic dynamics for sustainable development.
The forum is an initiative of the sub regional Office for West Africa of ECA in partnership with Compass Global Business Services, working with a host of Coalition Partners, such as the International Trade Centre, International Labour Office, ECOWAS, Organization of Trade Unions of West Africa, Lagos Chamber of Commerce & Industry, Neca’s Network of Entrepreneurial Women, Association of Nigerian Women Business Network (ANWBN), WIMBIZ, Junior Chamber International- Nigeria, Cameroon, a host of Youth Organizations, and Women Networks across the Region.
Ngone Diop, director of the Sub-Regional office for West Africa of ECA, has expressed the wishes of her Office to engage sector leaders across critical sectors of the economy within the West Africa Region, to translate ideas into actions around specific interventions that are designed to build capacities, and empower the Youths & Women in the region.
The process is aimed at developing a regional framework and an ecosystem, which is geared towards harnessing the opportunities of the African Continental Free Trade Areas (AfCFTA) as an anchor, to unlock the potentials of youths, and Women in West Africa (and Africa), as well as foster business championship to its maximum abilities for women and youths from across the region.
This will stimulate regional engagements and strategic private sector partnerships to support experienced and non-experienced women and youth entrepreneurs.
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