African Healthcare and COVID-19: Impact Investment to the Rescue?

After months of relatively mild impact from the novel COVID-19 pandemic, Sub-Saharan African nations appear to be entering a second, more powerful wave, with average death rates exceeding the global average for the first time. How did we get here? Join us for a conversation on how impact investors, social entrepreneurs and ecosystem enablers are working to address the economic challenges and resource gaps in response to this historical challenge.

This is the first event in a recurring series jointly hosted by the Impact Capital Forum and Impact@Africa. This cross-continent educational session will serve as a launching pad for an Africa Working Group being formed to discuss and explore opportunities to advance impact investing across Sub-Saharan Africa in alignment to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Agenda topics: 

• The current state of affairs
• The pandemic’s impact on achieving SDGs
• How impact investors and other ecosystem participants are responding
• How to strengthen the resiliency of healthcare systems post-pandemic
• How you can get involved

Featured Speakers:

• Abimbola Adebakin is the founder and CEO of Advantage Health Africa, a health tech company focused on direct-to-consumer and B2B solutions in the pharmaceutical last mile space. She is a Certified Performance Technologist (CPT), a Pharmacist, Business Consultant and tech innovator. Formerly, as Chief Operations Officer of the Tony Elumelu Foundation, she led operations of the $100 million Tony Elumelu Entrepreneurship Programme. In her career in management consulting, she led public and private sector consulting projects at the Financial Institutions Training Centre (FITC) and at Accenture. Abimbola has consulted for the World Bank/IFC, AAIN, AfDB. She serves on the board of Hallmark HMO as an independent director, trustee of the Safe Medicines Foundation, Committee of Practice of the Chartered Institute of Bankers (CIBN) and volunteer board of a number of non-profits. She is an alumni of the African Women Entrepreneurship Cooperative (AWEC) and Cascador.

• Dr. Iris Mwanza (Moderator) is the Director of the Community Health Roadmap. Prior to this position, she was the Executive Director of the BroadReach Institute for Training and Education (BRITE) and worked as the Deputy Director and Chief Operations Officer for the Centre for Infectious Disease Research in Zambia (CIDRZ). At CIDRZ, she ran operations for large scale prevention, care, and treatment programs for HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Cervical Cancer. Before her work in global health, Iris worked at the World Bank and as a corporate lawyer in both Zambia and the US. In addition to advocating for strong community health systems, she is also passionate about conserving nature and serves as a member of the WWF-US Board of Directors. Iris has an M.A. and Ph.D. in International Relations from Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, and law degrees from Cornell University and the University of Zambia.

• Nthenya Mule is a Co-founder of Antara Health Bio. Nthenya brings extensive experience in healthcare and finance in Kenya and abroad. She has served as the Head of Finance at Avenue Healthcare, Head of Business Development for the Chandler Corporation's East Africa Division, and Founding Director of the Acumen Fund's East Africa office. Nthenya has a Masters in International Economics and International Relations from Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies and a BA in Economics from Grinnell College.Nthenya is fluent in English, Kiswahili and Kikamba, and is proficient in French and Kikuyu.

• Quinton Zunga is the founder and current chief executive officer of RH Bophelo, a pan-African investment company with the mandate of advancing healthcare in Africa through strategic investments. Quinton was a Director at Bank of America Merrill Lynch SA (BofAML) and Head of its Debt Capital Markets for South Africa and sub-Saharan Africa. He was instrumental in capital raising for over US$1.5 billion in these regions. Before joining BofAML, Quinton was Head of Debt Capital Markets at Absa Capital. Previously, he was the Head of Debt Capital Markets at Barclays. He helped develop Africa’s Debt Capital Markets, launching the first medium-term notes in Botswana, Tanzania, Mauritius and Zambia. He also led the issue of municipal bonds by the City of Johannesburg. Quinton raised over US$2.0billion in forty transactions that he was the lead manager or co-lead manager over his seven years at Barclays.
  

ICF Members, Impact@Africa members & residents of Africa can pre-register at no cost. Non-Members may join for a $15 registration. Membership is available at levels for $25, $50 and $95, learn more.

Login instructions for this Zoom videoconference will be emailed after your registration is completed.