As world business leaders gathered in Copenhagen, Denmark to rub minds on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), as part of strategies for global sustainability, Managing Director of the Lagos Deep Offshore Logistics base (LADOL), Dr. Amy Jadesimi, has advocated for sustained capacity building by investors in order to adequately service a $200 billion growth market opportunities in West Africa.
This year’s annual event organized by Global Green Growth Forum (3GF) took place from June 6-7 2016, with the theme: “A call to action-enabling solutions at speed and scale”. It featured invited speakers from across the world, who spoke variously on how to achieve greener global transformation.
Dr. Jadesimi, who was one of the two prominent invited Nigerians at the event, was on the panel representing the Global Commission for Sustainable Development, as one its 31 Commissioners.
Also present at the event was Nigerian President of African Development Bank (AfDB), Dr. Akinwumi Adesina. The Commission featured Lord Mark Malloch-Brown as Co-Chair, Global Commission for Business and Sustainable Development.
In her presentation at the opening session which focused on the need to create a new social contract, the LADOL boss noted that “International banks and investors need to redefine bankability to enable them to participate in the highly lucrative opportunities for investment around the world”.
This, according to her, “will also help to sustainability and more rapidly achieve the Sustainable Development Goals” for Nigeria and West Africa in which she put the largely untapped growth market potentials at US$ 200 billion.
She said her organization has since keyed into the goals mantra hence it is poised to create no less than 50,000 jobs in the nearest future through her private investment in Nigeria’s oil and gas sector.
Dr. Jadesimi also featured in a Press Conference with the Danish Foreign Minister, Kristian Jensen, where she was specifically asked to discuss her role on the Global Commission of Sustainable Development, with reference to how LADOL has so far fared as a prime example of a new economy sustainable company.
In her intervention, she revealed that: “SDGs have been part of LADOL’s DNA for a decade, our success comes from the fact that we private invested in building capacity to service a clearly defined and drastically underserved US$ 200 billion market in West Africa.
“SME’s (Small and Medium Enterprises) and other companies in high growth markets need to do their part to attract investment by being FCPA compliant and better quantifying the private sector opportunities they have identified.
“Respecting and empowering local communities and civil societies is one of the first things investors should do to identify and tap into these opportunities – even the poorest people in the world will invest in healthcare and education given the option. In many cases they are paying for these things already. The role of government and NGO’s is to facilitate and define opportunities, the role of private sector is to execute and sustain.
“Over the last ten years LADOL was developed in line with the SDGs, even before their existence, we proved that private sector can derive significant profits while achieving the Sustainable Development Goals by pursuing opportunities in growth markets like Nigeria and West Africa” she added.
Other panelists who featured at the session were, Prime Minister of Denmark, Lars Lokke Rasmussen (Prime Minister of Denmark); Minister for Natural Resources and Environment, Vietnam, His Excellency Mr. Tran Hong Ha and the European Union (EU) Commissioner for Environment, Maritime Affairs and Fisheries, Karmenu Vella, among others.
In underscoring the relevance of the 3GF 2016 towards global transformation, a statement by the organizers of the annual event noted that “the momentum has never been greater for a green transformation of our world.
“This transformation will only be possible through genuine partnerships between public and private sector actors that unleash new sources of ideas, technology, and financing to scale up development solutions. The Global Green Growth Forum -3GF– has been continuously working to catalyze game-changing public-private partnerships to accelerate this transition, and bring trans-formative solutions to a global scale.”
The 2016 edition of the annual international event according to the conveners was aimed at consolidating the outcome of its past activities such as the 2015 3GF, the SDG implementation and climate action that took place in New York 21-22 April 2016, will now focus on agenda-setting and public commitment on sustainable development.
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