Private sector support for achieving critical development goals is a huge opportunity for business

  • 📰 BDliveSA
  • ⏱ Reading Time:
  • 97 sec. here
  • 3 min. at publisher
  • 📊 Quality Score:
  • News: 42%
  • Publisher: 63%

Philippines News News

Investing in the health and education of Africa's youth makes good business sense

It’s difficult to understand an enormous number such as $2.5-trillion. To put it in context, it’s about the size of France’s economy — the seventh largest in the world.

The public sector, donors and philanthropists obviously have a big role to play in closing this financing gap. But so does the private sector. In fact, private sector investment in the sustainable development goals is a huge opportunity for business, one that could open up $1.1-trillion in market opportunities in Africa alone and make life-altering strides towards achieving critical goals.

There are a growing number of enablers that encourage investment in projects to advance development on the continent. In 2001 more than $81bn had been unlocked globally through blended finance deals — a mechanism that uses development finance and philanthropic funds to mobilise private capital flows. Though not all of this was channelled towards the very poor, a full quarter of this money was focused on improving financial inclusion, one of the indicators where we've seen impressive growth.

A great example of this is when a group of public and private organisations came together in 2012 to provide volume guarantees to two pharmaceutical companies Bayer and Merck. This allowed them to lower the price by up to 50%, making the products more affordable for the world’s poorest countries.

Just as the private sector is a key player in delivering infrastructure, it can also become a stronger player in other development priorities such as health. In 2018, $7.7bn was raised across the continent in public-private partnerships, almost triple the amount of the year before. Seeing the devastation caused by malaria on the continent — with 90% of cases occurring in Sub-Saharan Africa — South African entrepreneur and Nandos founder Robbie Brozin helped established the Goodbye Malaria campaign. Supported by corporate partners, the campaign is helping to reduce the malaria burden by catalysing on-the-ground elimination programmes. During the World Economic Forum, Goodbye Malaria pledged $5.

 

Thank you for your comment. Your comment will be published after being reviewed.
Please try again later.
We have summarized this news so that you can read it quickly. If you are interested in the news, you can read the full text here. Read more:

 /  🏆 12. in PH

Philippines Philippines Latest News, Philippines Philippines Headlines

Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.

Open up the railway industry: Traxtion CEOOpening South Africa's rail infrastructure to private companies would see significant investments in the sector.
Source: eNCA - 🏆 49. / 51 Read more »

BUSINESS MAVERICK: What’s going on with the Public Private Growth Initiative? A lot more than you might thinkIt’s probably an understatement to say most South Africans are disappointed at the rate of change under the Ramaphosa administration. People who committed fraud and theft of grotesque dimensions under the previous administration are still zooming around in their SUVs as though nothing has changed. Economic growth is slow. Yet talk to Roelf Meyer and he will tell you his Public-Private Growth Initiative (PPGI) is going like a Boeing. How can that be?
Source: dailymaverick - 🏆 3. / 84 Read more »

Venture capital industry is taking off, but will it keep flying?Proposed cap on tax deductions creates uncertainty over growth in sector It is only available for the 1% elites in the world to create further division between rich and the 99% rest. Simple
Source: BDliveSA - 🏆 12. / 63 Read more »