Realizing Africa's Wealth - Building Inclusive Businesses for Shared Prosperity, Nairobi, Kenya
Breakfast Launch of:
REALIZING AFRICA'S WEALTH - BUILDING INCLUSIVE BUSINESSES REPORT
Wednesday, 31 July 2013, at Sarova Stanley Hotel, Nairobi, Kenya
The report provides the status quo on inclusive business and its promise in Africa with insights from over 170 in-depth enterprise and partnership case studies, expert interviews and survey responses. The report also features a number of Kenyan businesses and initiatives on inclusive businesses, including for example Equity Bank, the Kenya Financial Sector Deepening Initiative, Kenya Agricultural Commodity Exchange Limited, Safaricoms M-Pesa and the Sustainable Healthcare Foundation.
Prepared by UNDP's African Facility for Inclusive Markets, the report examines the approaches and conditions required to bring economic growth closer to low-income communities in Africa, focusing on how businesses can more readily include them as consumers, entrepreneurs and employees. It identifies promising opportunities in enabling enterprises and entrepreneurs to build more and stronger inclusive businesses. The report calls for more efforts to support inclusive businesses with incentives and investment schemes as well as knowledge sharing about market information and implementation.
UNDP aims at fostering inclusive business and public private collaboration in Kenya. With Kenya Investment Authority and two Japanese companies, we are currently piloting inclusive business models for water management at the community level, supporting Changamka health and are developing a supplier development program that aims to link small holder farmers to markets. In collaboration with KEPSA, we work on an initiative linking large companies with micro enterprises and on fostering public private dialogue.
Through partnership with the Ministry of Devolution and Planning and other public and private players, UNDP has embarked on an integrated multi-year and multi-partner programme on inclusive growth and economic empowerment of women and youth. This project in partnership with KEPSA fosters inclusive business and public-private collaboration.
In addition, UNDP will use this forum to showcase the work of the Business Call to Action (BCtA); a global leadership platform which has over 68 member companies and is hosted by UNDP and supported by a number of multi-lateral and donor agencies. These companies, sixteen of which have a focus on Kenya, have made commitments to improve the lives and livelihoods of millions through commercially viable business ventures that engage low-income people as consumers, producers, suppliers and distributors.