Digital NABA-summit with record number of African guests
NABA’s annual Summit took place last week as the virtual Nordic-African Business Webcast, with a record number of African delegates. 50 distinguished speakers, including CEOs, politicians and sector experts, took part in more than 17 sessions focusing on how African – Nordic business communities best can re-connect, re-engage and recalibrate business strategies.
20 African countries were represented in the Nordic-African Business Webcast. Sectors such as agribusiness, renewable energy and media, but also important cross-cutting topics such as strengthening the business climate, finance, cyber security, regional trade, demography, and doing virtual business, were covered.
More business potential
In her welcome remarks, Norway’s Foreign Minister H.E. Ine Eriksen Søreide highlighted the potential for more collaboration in times of uncertainty:
“Private sector faces unprecedented uncertainties due to the pandemic. And when we try to look beyond the pandemic, there is still great potential for more business-to-business cooperation between African and European companies.
No single nation can build back their economies alone, and we need to solve this global crisis together, as a global community. We need more partnership between businesses and between our political leaders, and we need better and closer cooperation across countries and across continents.”
Comparative advantages
African Union Commissioner for Energy & Infrastructure, H.E. Dr Amani Abou-Zeid, highlighted that the partnership between Nordic and African countries are being strengthened by initiatives such as the Nordic-African Business Webcast, and that closer working relationships are needed more than ever.
“We are in a different context. It is true that we have not seen the infection numbers or deaths in Africa like elsewhere – but the cost in terms of livelihoods are huge. We see a slowdown of African economies, this is a big hit. Closer working relationships are needed more than ever. Both for Africa, but also globally. The Nordic-Africa partnership is built on our comparative advantages, and responds to priorities and needs as they occur.”
Opportunity to leapfrog
For the African Union digitalization and energy are now top priorities.
– Not only fibers. E-learning. E-health. E-commerce. E-governance. Mobile banking. Fin-tech. Everything digital is a priority. Our continent has been leapfrogging previously, and this is a fantastic opportunity to leap-frog again, says the Commissioner.
Also the adaptation to renewable energy is a major priority for the AU. Energy is cheaper, but still 600 million lack access to energy.
– We have large programmes for mini-hydro, geo-thermal, wind and two of the world’s largest solar power plants have their home on the continent. We need to create jobs, but not the jobs of the past. Not the jobs of six months ago. Many of them will disappear. We must equip ourselves with the new reality that is coming very soon, and is already on our doorsteps, says the Commissioner.
Resource page available
“We are grateful to all our speakers who shared their insight, partners who made this possible, and all the guests from across the globe who created this unique community. I think we have proven by this Webcast that it is indeed possible to network on a digital conference.”
Guests of this year’s Nordic-African Business Webcast (as well as NABA’s members) will get access to all recordings in our resource-page.
This year’s Nordic-African Business Webcast was co-hosted with the Africa Finance Corporation (AFC), Scatec Solar and the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Conference partners included NOREC, Nurmara, EBCAM and the Financial Times.