The World Economic Forum is holding its annual Summit on the Global Agenda next week. Along with the roughly 1,000 local and international delegates gathering in Abu Dhabi to tackle some of the world’s toughest problems, the challenges facing Africa will feature in a very specific way. Africans who are pioneering important changes will come together with fellow experts from every continent. Alongside them, participants collaborating in Forum councils will suggest practical solutions to the problems facing African leaders.
Here are six leaders who will be shaping the African agenda in Abu Dhabi:
- Amina Mohammed
Acting as a special adviser to the United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on the Post-2015 Development Planning, Mohammed helped lead the UN’s consultative process that inspired the new Sustainable Development Goals. She has just been nominated to join the cabinet of Nigeria’s new president, Muhammadu Buhari. As the vice-chair of the Sustainable Development Council, she will be briefed by her fellow topic experts on innovative methods to engage business in the financing of sustainable development – a priority in Nigeria. - Sipho MoyoThe newly appointed chief-of-staff of the African Development Bank is committed to an African agricultural revolution. Moyo is a Zimbabwean national and member of the Africa Council, where she will propose ideas to reform value chains in key African commodities markets. She will receive feedback from fellow experts and collaborators, such as Frannie Léautier, on the best ideas to catalyse investments in technology and power supply, as well as the data and analytics needed to support the agricultural revolution. Lessons from the experience will help shape her contributions and support to the president of the African Development Bank, Akinwumi Adesina, the former Nigerian Minister of Agriculture.
- Fatou Bensouda
Bensouda, a Gambian national, is working to prosecute war crimes at theInternational Criminal Court (ICC), where she is the chief prosecutor. Her job puts her in charge of investigating and prosecuting crimes under the jurisdiction of the Rome Statute. The ICC is currently investigating cases or situations concerning the Central African Republic, Côte d’Ivoire, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, Libya, Mali, Sudan and Uganda. She is a member of the Council on Fragility, Violence and Conflict, a group seeking to develop recommendations for countries entering, experiencing and exiting such conditions. These are conclusions she will be able to draw from and feed into through her ongoing engagement. - The Rwandan Cabinet
There are four cabinet members in this network. Rwanda, which will host the World Economic Forum on Africa in May 2016, is sending representatives to address themes relevant to the nation’s growth. In addition to business and civil-society representatives, Jean Philbert Nsengimana, Rwandan minister of Youth and ICT, will become privy to global insights on the future of government, a forum that builds on scenarios that have explored the role of technology in strengthening governments, data and citizens. It is hoped that these can boost Rwanda’s efforts at leading a technological movement in education, migration and health. - Ashish Thakkar
The founder of business services company Mara Group will be pursuing his plans to create a social impact fund. Thakkar intends to establish a joint fund to administer between $500,000 and $1 milllion as part of a broader effort to support Africa’s small and medium-size enterprises, the untapped promise in most African economies. - Acha Leke
Originally from Cameroon, Leke shared a joint award at last year’s summit: for an initiative aimed at visa access and mobility around the continent. On these metrics, Leke, a director at McKinsey, developed a corresponding index, measuring individual country performances. The African Development Bank has taken it up and will incorporate within its regional integration team. At the summit in Abu Dhabi, Leke will meet with the new chief of staff at the African Development Bank.
So, what are the topics of discussion and why do they matter? All participants will be organized into 80 groups, corresponding with their active council memberships. Some will concentrate on topics from news headlines: migration, fragility and conflict, as well as nuclear security. Other councils are dedicated to climate change, agriculture and food security, as well as gender parity and unemployment. The Forum plays host to all 80 Global Agenda Councils, and virtually every topic on the “global agenda” will be subject to new thoughts and perspectives. Throughout these discussions, African council members will be providing a local perspective that has often been overlooked.
The groups will collaborate across the silos that become ingrained within businesses, governments and civil-society groups. They will move towards collaborative solutions that pull together knowledge from interwoven topic areas, industries and regions.
The Summit on the Global Agenda 2015 takes place in Abu Dhabi from 25-27 October