The Sterling One Foundation is pleased to announce that it will be hosting the second edition of the Africa Social Impact Summit (ASIS) between the 10th and 11th of August 2023 in Lagos, Nigeria, alongside corporate and development partners.
Following the successful implementation of some of the solutions put forward to tackle key African challenges at the inaugural edition, the Foundation with its partners, is excited to, once again, convene African leaders and development experts across the government, public, private and civil society sectors to share progress insights, knowledge and further galvanise impact investment for more sustainable solutions.
Launched in 2022, the Africa Social Impact Summit (ASIS) represents a direct action towards the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals in Africa, through the effective collaboration of all key players within the African development ecosystem to achieve market-led solutions for the growth of the continent, favourable policies that support them and investments that help them scale. The Summit had over 3,000 registrants from 66 countries and had 13 entrepreneurs from 4 African countries pitch at the Deal Room.
While delivering his keynote address at the maiden edition of the Summit, the United Nations Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in Nigeria, Matthias Schmale highlighted the need for Africa to eagerly begin to focus more attention on the most vulnerable in society as they are the most hit by the growing unemployment, spiralling inflation, climate change and insufficient access to quality education and health services.
This concern and similar concerns raised by key experts and thought leaders present at the inaugural Summit led to the selection of a central theme for this year’s edition, “Global Vision, Local Action: Repositioning The African Development Ecosystem For Sustainable Outcomes”, which is focused on ways of improving what African innovators are already doing, and finding ways to make impact investment on the continent more catalytic and scalable.
Speaking to the significance of the theme, Olapeju Ibekwe, CEO of the Sterling One Foundation explained that progress can only be made on the SDGs when partnerships are prioritised and built in a manner that focuses on the long-term and seeks to remove the various bottlenecks to real progress. “It is easier to resolve issues of unstructured governance to SDGs, lack of access to reliable data, transparency, and accountability issues if development partnership is built across the board, with all players involved and geared towards the same goal. This is what we hope to achieve at the end of the Summit,” she added.
Like the previous year, ASIS 2023 will be hosted as a hybrid event and will feature keynote addresses, panel conversations, exhibitions and a Deal Room for impact-focused entrepreneurs operating across Africa. In addition, the Summit will feature workshops for civil society organisations, an environmental, social and governance (ESG) roundtable, different sessions between private sector leaders and other players, and several other side events.
To register to attend the Summit, changemakers can book a seat at www.theimpactsummit.org.
About Sterling One Foundation
Sterling One Foundation (SOF) is a registered non-profit focused on tackling the root causes of poverty in Nigeria, and Africa through interventions and social impact programs across five critical sectors namely: climate action, health, education, and youth development, gender equality and empowerment, and food security. The Foundation’s programmes adopt a central theme of prioritising partnerships for the achievement of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
