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Africa Works! 2019

Future African Cities
April 8 & 9
Van Nelle Fabriek, Rotterdam

Africa Works! 2019

The flagship event of the Netherlands-African Business Council (NABC), Africa Works! is a biennial conference organized to position, promote and market the African continent as a valuable trade and investment destination.

The fourth edition took place on April 8 and 9, 2019 at the Van Nelle Fabriek in Rotterdam. Africa Works! aims to inform, inspire, and connect the Dutch and European private sector with a multitude of companies and government representatives from Africa. Previous editions of Africa Works! welcomed 400-500 participants per day from the African and European private sector as well as government and knowledge institutions.

Africa Works! has featured high-level keynote speakers like Queen Máxima of the Netherlands, then-minister of Foreign Trade Ms. Lilianne Ploumen, Mr.  Amine Bouabid, CEO of the Bank of Africa and Mr. Klaas Knot, President of the Dutch Central Bank (DNB).  You can see an impression of Africa Works! 2016 here. For the first time Africa Works! will be co-organized along with NLinBusiness and the German-African Business Association, Afrika-Verein.

Africa Works! 2019 has been officially opened on April 8,
2019 by Rotterdam Mayor Ahmed Aboutaleb

Theme of Africa Works! 2019

 

The future of Africa is urban. Therefore, the theme of Africa Works! 2019 is Future African Cities with an aim to connect African urbanization challenges to business opportunities for the European private sector. The first day of Africa Works! 2019 will be dedicated to ‘Building Future African Cities’ while day 2 is dedicated to ‘Powering African Cities’.
 
 

Smart Facts

By 2030, six of the world's 41 mega cities will be in Africa
By 2025, there will be 100 African cities with more than 1 million inhabitants
By 2035, half of the expected African population of 1.8 Billion will be urban
The continent's GDP is set to grow to $1.7 Trillion by 2030
Lagos, Nigeria, is predicted to be the world's largest city

Highlights of The Event

What participants think of us...

"I was truly honoured and pleased to attend Africa Works! 2019, and be part of the panel discussion. The conference was a fantastic networking event and I learned a great deal from interactions with many attendees. Congratulations to the whole NABC team for putting together such a well organised event! I look forward to continuing working together with NABC."
Arthur Minsat
Arthur MinsatOECD Development Centre Unit for Africa, Europe and Middle East
"Africa Works! 2019 was an abundance of ideas, networks and colour, all in a quaint old warehouse embracing the new amidst all the old. The camaraderie was great and the speakers credible and inspiring and conversation flowed, interspersed with moments when we all felt ‘with so much going for us let’s all get going now‘. The lasting message was: ‘’let’s change the narrative, there is more good in Africa than people hear and there’s not enough bad for people to talk only about the bad."
Sanjeev Gupta
Sanjeev GuptaAfrica Finance Corporation
"Africa Works! Conference is the only one of its kind in the Netherlands where a true picture is obtained of the economic potential of the continent of Africa and where the African vision is told, to which European parties can connect. We need more of these kind of occasions in the Netherlands in order foster the current economic relationship that really meets the demand of African markets.”
Sam Stevens
Sam StevensRotterdam Partners
"Africa Works! provided a platform for participants seeking solutions to identified City growth challenges to interact with others who have previously experienced or have expertise in addressing such challenges from both the public and private sector. It is a platform that could serve as a major resource hub for City solutions in the future."
Dr. Fola Dania
Dr. Fola Dania Lagos State Resilience Office
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"Africa Works! provides a unique platform for engagement with policymakers, business leaders and knowledge institutions on topical issues of the day. It should not be missed by anyone seriously operating in the Dutch-African ecosystem."
Tommy Davies
Tommy DaviesPresident ABAN Angels
The Africa Works Conference provided a very effective platform on which public sector, private sector, civil society and knowledge institutions from the Netherlands and Africa could meet and interact. The Dutch Diamond in practice! The Call for Proposals that was made public by the Global Agriculture and Food Security Program (GAFSP), an initiative sponsored by the Dutch government, lead to real credit for real investments. Those are the tangible results that made the Africa Works! Conference stand out.
Marcel Beukeboom
Marcel BeukeboomMinistry of Economic Affairs
Africa Works was a great opportunity to explore ICT in Africa with representatives from business, academia and the non-profit sector. At Africa Works, we were able to go well beyond the repetitive numbers on connectivity, mobile phone penetration and the next exciting application. There is much we can learn from each other and Africa Works offered a common forum to all of us.
Jasper Grosskurt
Jasper GrosskurtResearch Solutions Africa
The Africa Works! conference in 2012 brought together a varied group of professionals from the private sector, NGOs, knowledge institutes and the Dutch government interested in doing business in Africa; a great opportunity to expand my professional network within the Netherlands. I look forward to meeting you on 16 and 17 October during the 2014 edition in Leiden.
Bas de Vaal
Bas de VaalPortside International
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Conference Organiser

NABC is the leading Dutch networking organization for trade and investment facilitation on the African continent.

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