Sankalp Forum Africa

Since its inception in 2014, Sankalp Africa has become one of the region's leading events for social entrepreneurship and impact investing. The summit witnesses hundreds of game changing social entrepreneurs interact with investors and ecosystem builders every year.

Theme

Economic growth in East Africa has seen unprecedented growth in recent years, which has been far ahead of Africa as a whole, even outpacing SE Asia’s growth from 2012-2016.   The per capita GDP for East African countries have doubled over the last 10 years.  In addition to positive economic trends, people in East Africa have seen improved social indicators as well – overall they are living longer lives, gaining better education, and seeing improved quality of life, compared to the just the previous generation.  These are all positive steps towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, but we still have a long way to go for sustainable development take hold across the African continent.  In many circles, sustainability has become synonymous with revenues, business models, and entrepreneurship – where social businesses can be the main driver for meeting the SDGs. 

This entrepreneurship agenda has taken Africa by storm in recent years – global investors have their sights set on Africa as the next frontier for booming business, nascent sectors offer business opportunities everywhere for creative entrepreneurs, and the Silicon Savannah promises to leapfrog progress with technology.   

As the entrepreneurship agenda gains popularity from an ever-increasing base of stakeholders, and the space gets more crowded, these stakeholders and the entrepreneurs they support begin to rub shoulders and even step on each others’ toes without even knowing it. Many stakeholders have commonalities and even overlaps in their entrepreneurship agendas, but may never realize it. How effectively are such programs delivering value to entrepreneurs, customers, and beneficiaries? How much redundancy could be alleviated if these stakeholders worked together instead of in parallel? What efficiencies could be improved by aligning agendas across different stakeholders? What insights could be gained from seasoned veterans in the space, like impact investors, accelerator programs, and entrepreneurs themselves?

As we continue to work towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, it is more important than ever that we work in tandem instead of independently to amplify each individual’s contributions. The 2019 Sankalp Africa Summit is the one place where all these different types of stakeholders convene with the objective of building an enabling ecosystem for entrepreneur. The upcoming Summit looks forward to helping align stakeholders and provide a platform where unlikely alliances can take hold, and their collective impact can be amplified.

For more details and event programme click here.