June 11, 2015 Cape Town was the venue of this year’s World Economic Forum on Africa , a forum to share ideas and discuss opportunities for Africa. The event featured regional and world leaders from areas like business, government and civil society, meeting to discuss the growth rate of Africa over the last 25 years since the programme was first launched. The forum also touched on a pressing topic in the country, Xenophobia, with South African Business mogul Patrice Motsepe, reminding African countries to bond, as we need each other.
He said, “Xenophobia… South Africa in particular, our future is inextricably intertwined with the future of the continent. We have to be a country that welcomes and creates a dispensation that allows all Africans and people from all over the world to do well. The best economies in the world have grown on the back of creating an environment that is tolerant but also accommodating,”
Unilever CEO, Paul Polman who was in attendance said “Being together for two or three days…. don’t underestimate the power of having these people meet and talk and exchange ideas and create new projects and concepts to drive things forward. Africa has done well, the continent has grown consistently for about 5 percent. It needs to grow to the five, six, seven percent if we really want to give everybody a chance and develop everybody, so the growth is actually encouraging compared to the rest of the world but it is below what we need if we want to lift the people out of poverty,”
WEF also addressed the great need for more women to take part in leadership and business, and that more needs to be done to address inequalities and gender abuses in many African nations.
Nigerian actress and activist Omotola Jalade Ekeinde who participated said “A lot of women around the world have several issues, several challenges and most times we do not have enough women in power to speak up for us so it’s a double jeopardy, you have all these issues and you don’t have people to speak for you and the few who stand up to speak, most times are not loud enough,”