As Unstoppable Africa 2025 returns to New York, UN World Compact CEO Sanda Ojiambo explains how GABI is driving partnerships, sustainability, and youth-led innovation to redefine Africa’s world financial function.
New African: The World Africa Enterprise Initiative (GABI) has shortly established itself as a strong platform. Are you able to clarify its origins and why it was necessary to create such a devoted initiative for Africa at this second?
Sanda Ojiambo: GABI was established in 2022 to reshape the narrative on Africa, and in addition reshape how world enterprise engages with Africa and the way Africa engages with world enterprise. For too lengthy, the main target has been on doing enterprise in Africa, reasonably than doing enterprise with Africa – based mostly on constructing real partnerships with the African continent and its enterprise ecosystem. We aimed to shift that dynamic by catalyzing conversations and constructing partnerships centered on collaboration, funding, and long-term progress led by African companies and communities. With world disruptions in commerce, power, and provide chains, Africa is uniquely positioned to contribute to and form the way forward for the worldwide financial system. GABI serves as a bridge, connecting decision-makers, traders, and entrepreneurs to assist understand that potential.
NA: Unstoppable Africa is the flagship occasion of GABI and returns this September alongside the UN Normal Meeting. What can we count on from this yr’s version, and the way will it construct on the momentum of final yr?
SO: Unstoppable Africa 2025 might be held on September 21–22 on the Marriott Marquis in New York, forward of the UN Normal Meeting. This yr’s theme, The BIG Push: Africa Shapes the Markets, displays a transparent ambition to place Africa as a driver of markets. The occasion will function two days of centered discussions and sensible methods throughout key sectors, together with power, digital transformation, commerce, artistic industries, and sport. Since GABI’s inception, we’ve introduced collectively over 8,000 leaders, from heads of state to CEOs and outstanding sportspeople and creatives. This yr, we’re constructing on that basis with a stronger emphasis on motion and measurable outcomes that assist long-term progress.
NA: Africa is usually described because the world’s final progress frontier. Out of your perspective, what function ought to African companies and leaders play in shaping world financial and sustainability agendas?
SO: Africa should have a spot on the decision-making desk relating to shaping the way forward for the worldwide financial system. The continent is one full of alternative: a younger and dynamic inhabitants, ample pure sources, and a rising pool of entrepreneurial expertise. These are the foundations for management in vital sectors, comparable to clear power, agriculture, know-how, and the artistic industries. Now we should speed up the tempo and scale of motion. African companies, governments, policymakers, and different stakeholders should interact instantly in world dialogue round commerce, sustainability, progress, and growth. By doing so, they may also help outline the foundations and requirements, in addition to discover options for the market that work for Africa and for the world.
NA: The UN World Compact focuses strongly on sustainable growth. How is GABI serving to African firms align with the Sustainable Improvement Targets (SDGs) whereas additionally advancing competitiveness and progress?
SO: GABI helps African firms align with the SDGs by displaying that sustainability and enterprise efficiency can go hand in hand. By encouraging alignment with frameworks just like the SDGs and Agenda 2063, GABI helps firms by selling dialogues and partnerships that spotlight what has already labored, in addition to supporting efforts to draw funding, construct stronger provide chains, and increase into new markets. In sectors like power and agriculture, sustainable practices usually are not solely environmentally accountable; in addition they create new alternatives for progress, employment, and elevated exports.
NA: Partnerships are central to success in at present’s interconnected world. How is GABI fostering collaboration between African companies, governments, and world companies?
SO: GABI fosters collaboration by making a platform the place African companies, governments, decision-makers, enterprise leaders and world companies can interact instantly and construct long-term relationships with the remainder of the world. We curate alternatives to showcase what works, join companies and traders, and supply sensible partnership alternatives that assist funding, innovation, and shared progress. Via high-level convenings, focused initiatives, and sector-specific packages, GABI helps align the pursuits of the private and non-private sectors. This strategy ensures that African priorities are mirrored in world methods and that worldwide companions higher perceive Africa’s markets, expertise, and alternatives.
NA: Many younger Africans are driving innovation throughout know-how, power, and artistic industries. How is GABI amplifying the voices and alternatives of Africa’s youth and entrepreneurs?
SO: Africa’s youth are its biggest asset. With a inhabitants of over 1.5 billion in 2025 and a median age of simply 19.3 years, the continent is house to the world’s youngest and fastest-growing workforce. By supporting entrepreneurship and scaling concepts, GABI helps be certain that Africa’s youth usually are not simply shaping the long run; they’re actively collaborating in constructing it.
NA: Some critics say world discussions on Africa stay too centered on potential reasonably than concrete motion. How is GABI making certain that commitments made throughout occasions like Unstoppable Africa translate into measurable outcomes?
SO: GABI is targeted on turning dialogue into tangible outcomes. At occasions like Unstoppable Africa, we showcase what is feasible and what has been finished, we spotlight alternatives and create a platform for partnerships.
NA: Wanting forward, what’s your long-term imaginative and prescient for GABI, and the way do you see its function in shaping Africa’s place on the world stage over the subsequent decade?
SO: Over the subsequent decade, I see GABI changing into a central power in redefining Africa’s function within the world financial system. Our long-term imaginative and prescient is to construct a platform that constantly delivers outcomes, mobilizing funding, strengthening regional worth chains, and elevating African management throughout key sectors and world partnerships with Africa. We wish to be certain that African companies usually are not simply collaborating in world markets however serving to to form them. By aligning with world frameworks, such because the SDGs and Agenda 2063, and by constructing significant partnerships, GABI will proceed to drive inclusive progress and place Africa as a supply of resilience and alternative.
