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Stretching across six time zones
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and 54 nations,
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Africa is populated by more than 1.4 billion people.
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It's a continent with unparalleled diversity and complexity,
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and it represents the rich potential of a pluralistic world.
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The continent's path to prosperity
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will overcome a boom in population,
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fast urbanization, climate change,
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and acceleration in positive health,
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education, and economic outcomes.
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The private sector is essential
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to this unstoppable potential.
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Despite being fragmented across geographies,
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Africa's private sector is greater
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than the sum of its parts,
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but how can it reach its full potential
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and operate with a unified voice?
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Built upon the mission of the UN Global Compact,
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working in partnership with BCG,
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the Africa Business Leaders Coalition,
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ABLC, bridges this gap.
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(upbeat music)
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It's a unique platform.
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It's a Pan-African coalition of CEO-led business leaders.
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There are 58 of them, and the coalition is growing.
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It's represented across 50 different countries
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on the continent.
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The private sector has a very important role to play
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in the development of the continent.
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And ABLC is the best tool to promote the right policies,
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but also to make sure
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that everybody is moving into action very fast
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and making sure that we're doing it the right way.
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As the name suggests, coalition,
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it's bringing us together so that we have a united front,
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we align our efforts, we synergize each other,
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and bring particularly the private sector together
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to climate action.
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I think putting the capital base
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of the private sector will go a long way
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to complement the public sector in climate action.
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This coalition is not a finance coalition
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or an industry coalition or a consumer goods coalition.
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It's a coalition of companies across all sectors
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and that makes sure that the voice is holistic,
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the voice is representative,
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and it's a voice that you can say,
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this is the private sector voice in Africa.
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So when we established this coalition,
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it was established with climate as a central piece
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and that gave an anchor to the coalition.
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One year after its launch,
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climate considerations among ABLC companies has doubled,
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and those preparing climate resilience plans
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increased by 150%.
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Between 2022 and 2023,
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twice as many companies set specific targets
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to increase renewable energy use,
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and more than a third actively reduced their emissions.
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With this momentum, progress is accelerating.
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Naspers is making great progress on climate action.
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I think, looking from the time
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that we came from Sharm el-Sheik in Egypt
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together with the ABLC,
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it's really been good to see the extent
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to which we all could remain committed
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to achieving our climate action targets.
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It's been incredible to see growth from concept
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to a coalition now of over 60 business leaders
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and really starting to drive forward policy dialogue
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with governments doing advocacy
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and also, equally importantly,
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driving their own capacities within business.
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We felt
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climate was too important
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to leave it to government leaders alone,
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and we felt that the best mechanism
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of executing climate action is by the private sector,
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such that it's people-centered, it's people owned,
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and each of us makes our contribution.
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But I believe that we should also focus
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on social interventions to ensure we address
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the underlying problem of poverty
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and access to health by the population.
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I'm extremely happy about the work
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that we're doing in terms of climate action,
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but what I'd like to see more of
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is work with respect to gender equality
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and ensuring that we have more inclusion.
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We need more communities to be with us
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as we continue with this.
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Coalitions are only as important as the ecosystems
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that they change,
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the envelopes that they push,
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and the boundaries that they create.
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So I'd really love to see how we can
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take the opportunity of ABLC
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to push even further for this next seven years
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of the sustainable development goals,
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but most importantly for Africa,
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demonstrating and reshaping the narrative
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of the African private sector,
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because it's such a fundamental pillar of growth
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and transformation for the continent.
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This is not just about us.
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It's about the future, it's about our youth,
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and ensuring that they have a real sustainable future
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as we move forward.
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(bright music)