2021 Africa Shared Value Leadership Summit opens for registration

During August we paid tribute to women everywhere, as part of our Women’s Month celebrations in South Africa. We also hosted a very successful African Universities Gender Equality Forum, with close to 300 attendees from more than 15 countries joining us during this all important session.

We kicked off our second #ITSNOTOK campaign in Johannesburg and Cape Town with more than 200 billboards and street pole posters, all of which aims to raise awareness and mobilise citizens to speak out, stand together and act against Gender Inequalities and Gender Based Violence & Femicide (GBVF) – Africa’s biggest societal shame. To join the movement visit the www.itsnotok.africa website and pledge your support.

In August the SVAI, as a member of the GBVF National Strategic Plan collaborative, crafted messaging for the #YOUCANTHIDE campaign, which advocates for regulatory reform with regards to banning of ex-perpetrators from holding leadership positions.  In order to realise a much bigger impact, the SVAI team motivated to launch the #YOUCANTHIDE campaign as part of the #ITSNOTOK Campaign. The combination of this messaging can be seen on the current #ITSNOTOK Campaign.

August is also Shared Value Awards Judging time and we would like to extend a healthy dose of luck to all entrants into the 2021 Loeries Awards, as judging for the Awards gets underway. This year, the Loeries challenged the industry to #fighthegoodfight and create work that moves society forward in a positive direction. This is also a theme that resonates with the very essence of the Shared Value Awards category.

The remainder of August has been dedicated to preparations for our second Entrepreneurship Investor Readiness course, which we will be co-hosting this time with Ghana Tech Lab, as well as finaliwing the CEO Connect for September 30^th.  Part of August was allocated to finalizing the  planning and speakers for the 5th Africa Shared Value Leadership Summit, which is happening both online (virtually) and live (in-person) in Johannesburg, from 8-9 November 2021. We officially opened for registrations, with our website live and the provisional programme available online.

One Africa One Voice, the theme for the 2021 Summit, reflects what is needed to #BuildBackBetter. If we are to create a more equitable society, business across all industry sectors must come together with society and collectively interrogate how Africa can achieve the future we all want – particularly in this Decade of Action towards the realisation of Agenda 2030 and achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals.

We are very excited as this year with the various and unique sessions created for our African entrepreneurs. There will be opportunities for our entrepreneurs to participate in a discussion with Mark Kramer, share the barriers that they face on their journey, and a platform to showcase their climate change innovations. We are inviting entrepreneurs across the African continent, who are actively fighting climate change, to join us and share their climate change solutions during a 6 minute speaking and presentation slot on either 8 or 9 November. The selection criteria entry form is available online at the Summit website and the deadline for entries is 30 September.

This year, we are celebrating 10 years since the now-famous Creating Shared Value article, co-authored by Professors Michael Porter and Mark Kramer, was first published in the Harvard Business Review. As part of the10 year celebrations, there will be a live link-up on 8 November to the start of the global Shared Value Leadership Summit in the USA. In addition, the Africa Summit will conclude on 9 November with an insightful address by Prof. Kramer, who will be sharing his views on the important part Shared Value has to play in the economic recovery of Africa.

It goes without saying that the 2021 Africa Shared Value Leadership Summit will not be possible without the support of the SVAI members and sponsors. The current headline sponsors include Abbott, Absa and Old Mutual.

Please look out for our next newsletter where we will be discussing the summit in more detail.