On the 3rd of October 2024, the Norwegian-African Business Association (NABA), and our co-hosts Norfund and Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs are organizing the 13th annual Nordic-African Business Summit in Oslo.

Partnership for Change, a Norwegian CSO, is hosting a seminar to discuss the importance and potential of ”care policies” and to boost productivity and inclusivity in emerging economies. ILO’s Care@Work project in Ethiopia will feature as a case study. 

Half of a country’s talent is female. This huge resource is systematically underutilised as women generally carry the burden of childcare. According to the World Bank, 94% of persons missing out on paid work due to care responsibilities are women. Not only do many mothers stop working post-birth due to a lack of paid leave and adequate childcare, but women are also discriminated against in expectation of them becoming mothers. 

This is bad for business. The cost of initiatives such as maternity protection, parental leave, and professional childcare for ages 0-4 can for many companies of a certain size be cheaper than the cost of losing good workers and paying for continuous recruitment and training. It also results in the loss of future female leaders.

The Care@Work project in Ethiopia, implemented in partnership with PfC, highlights practical and realistic solutions, emphasising the need for collaboration across business, government, and civil society actors to ensure more inclusive growth. 

The seminar will feature speakers from ILO, Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, NORFUND, Norwegian Confederation of Trade Unions (LO), Institutt for Samfunnsforskning and Equality Check. It is held in a combination of Norwegian and English.

For more information and to sign up for the event, follow this link:
https://pfchange.org/event/realising-rights-in-practice/

Welcome to a webinar to learn more about the European Union Intellectual Property (IP) Office Africa IP SME Helpdesk. The webinar will contain a presentation of the Helpdesk services from an IP specialist. Furthermore, a Q&A will be held to answer to all queries and to gather feedback from participants.

The aim of this webinar is to raise awareness about the Helpdesk services among Norwegian SMEs, who may benefit from the Africa IP SME Helpdesk support given that Norway is a participating country of the Single Market Programme (SMP).

More details: https://intellectual-property-helpdesk.ec.europa.eu/news-events/upcoming-events/africa-ip-sme-helpdesk-first-line-support-ip-smes-presentation-naba-members-2024-06-18_en

NABA members are invited to a member meeting in Oslo with PANGEA-RISK, discussing: 

• What is the political and economic outlook for key Norwegian investment destinations in Africa? 

• Will the Red Sea crisis imperil African free trade and supply chain opportunities? 

• Are African countries still a debt risk or are they investable again?

PANGEA-RISK is a specialist intelligence advisory that provides commercially relevant and actionable analysis and forecasts on political, security, and economic risk in Africa and the Middle East. PANGEA-RISK operates a leading subscription platform on country risk intelligence and is a trusted risk consultancy with a broad network of clients ranging from development finance institutions, banks, funds, traders, corporates, and insurers, to governments, intelligence agencies, and military forces worldwide.

Our members Export Finance Norway and Innovation Norway are hosting their annual conference the Export Conference on the 12th of March. Please follow the link for more details: https://www.eksfin.no/no/arrangementer/eksportkonferansen/eksportkonferansen-2024/