Sterling One Foundation Moves to Strengthen Alliance for SDG Action in Africa

The Foundation has been on this mission since 2022 when it launched the Africa Social Impact Summit (ASIS) platform, through which it worked to secure $49 million in catalytic funding for various impact-focused projects across Africa last year.

With a growing need for innovative and sustainable financing models to cover for the COVID-19 setbacks and the negative effects of other developmental challenges, the ASIS platform provides a strategic alliance for the public and private sectors, civil society, and the international investment community to realign on sustainable approaches funding development in Africa and derisking most of its investment opportunities.

The Foundation’s CEO, Mrs. Olapeju Ibekwe describes the convening as vital for ensuring that the growth opportunities are clearer and that the path to harnessing them is efficient.

“We set up the Africa Social Impact Summit to marry brilliant ideas with supportive policies that make it easier for impact investment to back those ideas and plans. We need collaborative private-sector funding just as much as we need better policies on the sub-national, national, and continental levels of government to scale the ideas and results of civil society organizations, entrepreneurs, international donors, and investors funding a lot of the last-mile interventions and innovations that are moving the needle for the most vulnerable in Africa.”

With just a few years left before the expiration of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, adopted by all United Nations members in 2015, the United Nations’ System’s role in delivering on ASIS’ mission remains the galvanization of coordinated social impact support by the private sector, which UN Nigeria Resident Coordinator, Assistant Secretary-General Mohamed M. Malick Fall says will ensure no one is left behind and partnerships efforts are coordinated and complementary.

For more information on the Africa Social Impact Summit, see the website.