Dangote, Aig-Imoukhuede Push for Private Sector Collaboration in Africa

Africa’s richest man, Alhaji Aliko Dangote and the immediate past President of the Nigerian Stock Exchange, who is also the Chairman of Coronation Capital and co-chair of Global Business Coalition on Health (GBCHealth), Aigboje Aig-Imoukhuede have stressed that public-private sector collaboration will improve the health sector across Africa.

At the Africa Business and Investment Forum, a high-level public-private sector dialogue, which was a side event at the recently concluded Assembly of Heads of States and Government of the African Union meeting in Addis Ababa, the two business leaders were said to have taken steps to champion improvements in the health sector across Africa and at the global level.

Aig-Imoukhuede, who commended the government for taking the private sector seriously, was also quoted in a statement to have said that “this is the first time the Africa Union will be engaging the private sector in its work as a partner to further the objectives of the union.”

Calling for collaboration between government and private sector, Aig-Imoukhuede stated that there was a need to leverage the power and resources of the business community for positive impact on global health challenges, and perhaps use the platform to give birth to an ‘African Davos’, which will take place after the AU summit every year and foster collaboration between private sector enablers and public sector drivers. He stated further that “great things happen when enablers and drivers collaborate.”

On his part, Dangote identified the missing gap in continent’s development as “the need for Africa as a continent to come together.”
He added that “the only way to move Africa forward is to think big, dream big and do big things together.”
To this end, Dangote Foundation and GBCHealth are catalysing an African Business coalition for health, ABCHealth which will support African business efforts to fight poverty and improve health in Africa, providing a neutral platform to incubate partnerships, drive investments in health and spotlight African business leaders and their work on health.

“There is strong appetite from African corporates, business leaders, donors and development partners for investing in innovative and scalable health system while the state of the health sector across the continent is characterised by suboptimal outcomes (infectious diseases, malnutrition), poor quality health system, fragmented health market, limited innovation and absence of protection against financial risks for citizens” that is the paradox of the African health sector, said Aig-Imoukhuede.

In closing his speech, Aig-Imoukhuede urged the private sector to “see health issues not just as doing good, but as a real competitive market, and thus should be at the center of our economic agenda”, adding that there is a strong rationale for the private sector to play a role in shaping health markets in Africa because good health is good business, therefore investing in health is both a business and social imperative.”