Washington, D.C. – Attending this year’s meeting of the Leadership Council of the Initiative for Global Development (IGD) in Washington, D.C., Afreximbank President Jean Louis Ekra, on 11 March 2013, joined a group of high-level CEOs for a wide-ranging discussion of Africa’s workforce development needs.
Led by Leadership Council Corporate Co-Chair Bill Green, and featuring President Ekra as lead discussant, CEOs with operations in Africa spoke of an intense competition for talent and the difficulty they faced finding people with the right skills and experience.
There was, however, broad agreement that business has a vested interest in improving education outcomes, even as the CEOs recognised the daunting enormity of the education and training deficits that Africa faced.
IGD announced that over the coming year, it would continue to work to raise awareness of the common employment challenges which businesses faced across sectors in Africa, to showcase corporate best practices, and to explore opportunities for companies to work collectively in addressing them.
“Afreximbank President Jean-Louis Ekra with IGD Leadership Council Co-Chair Madeleine Albright in Washington, D.C.”
Another conversation, moderated by IGD Board Chair Rob Mosbacher, focused on how to significantly increase electrical power generation across the continent. Panelists Andrew Alli of Africa Finance Corporation, Joe Brandt of ContourGlobal, and Paul Hanrahan of American Capital Infrastructure, all agreed that a primary obstacle was the length of time it took to bring new generation facilities online, usually from five to seven years.
The IGD Leadership Council is made up of accomplished business leaders and global development experts who provide high-level guidance for IGD’s strategic direction. It is co-chaired by former U.S. Secretaries of State Madeleine K. Albright and General Colin L. Powell. IGD was founded in 2003 by Bill Gates Sr. and three others, and has grown into an influential network of business leaders sharing a common vision of ending global poverty through sustainable economic growth.