US-Africa Investment Forum: Africa’s Role in Tackling Global Challenges

14 Sept

Global leaders are confronting an era of elevated geopolitical and economic instability defined by deepseated supply chain disruption, rising inflation, energy insecurity and the mounting threat of climate change. As a market of over 1 billion people with some of the most abundant deposits of natural resources in the world, Africa can play a central role in tackling these global challenges. However, without significant efforts increase in investment into strategic sectors such as infrastructure, manufacturing, agriprocessing, mining, energy and capacity building, the opportunity to harness Africa’s strengths will be missed and underperformance in the region will dampen global economic performance, pose mounting security threats and exacerbate social crises.

In recent years, the continent has demonstrated increasingly effective regional cooperation, most notably in its response to the Covid-19 pandemic and the ambitions of the African Continental Free Trade Area. By deepening regional cooperation to meet Africa’s shared goal of transforming Africa’s economies with a focus on value addition and infrastructure investments, Africa can improve its position in the global economy and act as a more effective partner in solving global challenges. The region has set out is investment priorities with a strong focus on developing value chains across agriculture, mining, energy and manufacturing. Developing processing capacity closer to Africa’s mines will reduce emissions in the global mining sector and support the global energy transition through increased production of essential minerals. Strengthening the regions energy production capacity will offer alternative supply chains to developed nations while empowering a continent set to be home to 2.5 billion people by 2050. Investing in agro-processing will insulate the continent against the threat of food-insecurity and drive inclusive growth.

This Invest Africa Forum will focus on highlighting why strengthening Africa’s partnerships with the rest of the world should be a priority for global leaders, how the continent plans to unlock growth and social development, and what more needs to be done within the continent and beyond to harness global capital towards these goals.

Session running order

16:30: Welcome

16:45: Presentation - The Fundamentals of Harnessing African Opportunities

16:55: VIP Keynote

17:15: Panel Discussion

18:15: Q+A

18:30: Drinks Reception

19:00: Forbes Best of Africa Award

19:30: Close

Speakers