Africa’s key Business Leaders to converge in Accra

Africa’s most influential leaders will be converging in Accra next week to create partnerships and collaborative pathways to achieve effective social change and impact in the region.

The 2011 U-turn Africa Stakeholder Forum, which comes off at the Labadi Beach Hotel on Thursday September 15, will be focusing on the energy sector, as well as the extractive and infrastructural sectors with input from key stakeholders in Ghana, Nigeria and Cameroon.

It will bring together world renowned brands such as Chevron, the World Bank, Shell, the National Petroleum Authority and Newmont.

Speaking to Citi News, the Chief Executive Officer of U-Turn Africa, Mrs Doyin Oluntona was hopeful that communities will be changed after the conference.

“That’s why we are focusing on the energy, infrastructure and extractive industries. We hope that at least for this forum, we can address issues specific to those segments of society and hopefully this time next year we can have feedback saying this is what the forum achieved.

“For example in the oil and gas, Ghana is a new player in the energy world, and we hope that their Nigerian counterparts can come and say ‘these are the mistakes we made – and they are going to be very upfront - we messed up in some areas. This is how we messed up, and we hope Ghana doesn’t go in this direction. That obviously will impact the policies and the way Ghanaian energy industry comes up,” she said.

“For the extractive industry we know Newmont Ghana Gold is doing a lot and we hope they can continue to do that and to even form bigger collaborations to ensure that they are impacting the environment positively. Same thing for the infrastructure.”

According to the organizers, speakers at the event will include Ghana’s Minister of Trade and Industry, Hanna Tetteh; Keli Gadzepo, Executive Vice-Chairman, Co-Founder Databank, Ghana; Dr. Joyce Aryee, CEO of Ghana Chamber of Mines, Alex Mould, CEO National Petroleum Authority, Mr. Andrew Fawthrop, MD/CEO Chevron Nig/Mid Africa Strategic Business Unit.

Others are Randy Barnes, Regional Vice President, Environment & Social Responsibility, Newmont Gold, Ghana; Funkapo Fufeyin, Mgr. Government & Community Relations, (SPDC) Shell Oil Nigeria; Sophia Mbakwe, Group Public Affairs Manager, Statoil Nigeria; and Dr. Nkoyo Attah, DGM CSR & Public Affairs DW, Total E&P Nigeria.


Source: citifmonline.com