Just days prior to the World Economic Forum on Africa, the Initiative for Global Development (IGD) will convene its Frontier 100 Forum on May 31 to June 2, in Cape Town, South Africa, where top international and African business leaders will put forth solutions to advancing trade and strategic investments to accelerate economic growth and alleviate poverty on the African continent.
IGD is a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit organization that drives poverty reduction by catalyzing business growth and investment in the developing world, with a focus on Africa.
The Frontier 100 Forum, an exclusive, invitation-only biannual event, will bring together CEOs and senior executives from the IGD network of leading African and global companies such as Microsoft, Dangote Industries, DHL Express, Africa Finance Corporation, Visa, Illovo, General Electric, Econet Wireless Global, and Pearson, among others.
The African continent boasts some of the world's fastest-growing economies. Harnessing Africa's economic promise to solve local challenges will top the agenda at this year's Forum. The Forum is designed to encourage business leaders to offer insight, collaborate, and advance initiatives in key sectors of Africa including power, information and communications technologies (ICT), agriculture, and financial services, while exploring the intersection of these issues across all industries.
The Frontier 100 Forum is an integral part of the organization's mission to leverage business solutions to address poverty. "The Frontier 100 Forum goes beyond networking with peers and business discussions. We've gathered the world's leading business leaders together to identify bold, action-oriented strategies to promote poverty alleviation in Africa from a business perspective," said Dr. Mima Nedelcovych, IGD's President & CEO. "Done correctly, business can generate tremendous impacts in Africa. IGD strongly believes that doing good business is actually good for business."
CEOs and senior executives will weigh in on how to advance a business-driven development agenda in Africa. Forum topics will range from drawing attention to hot sectors in Africa, overcoming logistics constraints, business impact measurement, addressing the African skills gap to reaching the last mile stakeholders and utilizing a standardize approach in development. During the Forum, IGD, in collaboration with partners such as Business Fights Poverty and AllAfrica, will also launch the New Africa Report and co-host a town hall discussion on breaking the bottlenecks in business.
The Frontier 100 Forum precedes the World Economic Forum on Africa, which begins on June 3 in Cape Town. "IGD's Frontier 100 Forum is a great precursor to the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Africa and it often brings about some great ideas that will be discussed at WEF," says Austin Okere, Founder & CEO of Computer Warehouse Group, a Frontier Leader company.
IGD's biannual forums are held twice each year, once in the U.S and once in Africa to convene senior executives of leading U.S., African, European and South Asian companies who are part of IGD's Frontier Leader Network. More than half of IGD Frontier Leaders hail from the African continent.
"The role of IGD in Africa is very important, creating a platform where business leaders, who are competitive outside, can share experience and identify areas of synergy and collaboration," says Frontier Leader Farouk Gumel, Partner at PWC West Africa.
