Enhancing Africa’s Value in Global Value Chains - 2023 U.S.-Africa Business Summit

Following the Opening Ceremony of the 15th U.S.- Africa Business Summit on Wednesday, July 12, 2023, Corporate Council on Africa hosted the Scene Setter Plenary. This session set the tone on this year’s summit theme “Enhancing Africa’s Value in Global Value Chains” and was moderated by Tania Habimana, Anchor, CNBC Africa. The panelists included CEOs and top executives from the African private sector and African Heads of State, top U.S. delegation as well as C-suite private sector executives were present at this plenary.John Olajide, the Founder/CEO of AXXESS and Chairman of Cavista Holdings began the session by highlighting the challenges of access to good quality healthcare not only in Africa but around the globe and proffering solutions with AXXESS’ technology which, he says, is leading the way in enhancing the value of healthcare by increasing its access to good quality home healthcare globally. He added that Cavista Holdings, which operates in Nigeria, employs the highest number of software engineers in Nigeria. These engineers have developed the best software development skills in the world for mobile devices due to lack of access to larger bandwidth and devices. This has led to value addition as more engineers within that ecosystem are being trained to continue to provide the best mobile based healthcare solutions from the African continent.Charles Russon, Chief Executive Officer at Absa Corporate and Investment Banking spoke about the importance of leveraging the AfCFTA to increase trade in and with Africa. Also, he stated that policy alignment, talent/skill building, and infrastructure development are critical to enhancing Africa’s value in the global value chains. He further spoke about Absa’s role as a bank in financial inclusion leading industrialization and uplifting communities such that growth happens on a broad basis.Renan Ozyerli, Regional President, Eastern Europe, Middle East, and Africa at MSD said that PPPs are critical to managing health concerns in Africa. He gave examples including MSD’s partnership with the Government of Botswana and the Gates Foundation on HIV/Aids management which has significantly reduced death caused by HIV/AIDS in Botswana. He mentioned that such PPPs help to keep Africa healthy as a young and growing population which in turn, is critical to economic growth. He also mentioned the need for specialization and regionalization based on the needs of each country/region while sharing information and best practices with other countries/regions. He gave an example of a partnership with WHO to stop/prevent Ebola in regions that are susceptible to outbreaks.Africa Finance Corporation’s Executive Director for Financial Services, Sanjeev Gupta, talked about the importance of infrastructure, industrialization and value addition which includes the processing of Africa’s primary goods within the continent. He exemplified AFC’s concept used at the Gabon Economic Zone where they partnered with the Gabonese Government to build an ecosystem of 400 furniture manufacturers utilizing local timber and building the logistics network for export of finished furniture thereby adding value and reducing the reliance on the export of extractives.Finally, Aida Diarra, the Senior Vice President and Head of Sub-Saharan Africa at Visa pointed the audience to key drivers. With Africa’s population projected to make 25% of the world’s population by 2050 which will lead to 4 trillion payments being made on the continent as well as Africa’s possession of 40% of the world’s arable land and minerals, innovation is a catalyst for economic development. She stated that this has already begun and has led to a spike in digital payments, especially during the pandemic. Aida believes that further closing the digital payment gaps in the formal and informal sectors will further enhance Africa’s value addition. She ended the session emphasizing the importance of connectivity and access to payment systems within Africa and with other parts of the world. “The opportunities are endless, and we need to capitalize on Africa’s vibrancy to give access and enhance its value globally,” says Diarra.Click hereto watch the recorded session.