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