26/08/2026
A guest who is blind came to a Business Week Afrika event. We were glad they came. We had always meant well. That day we found out meaning well had built us nothing.
Nobody had decided to leave them out. Nobody had decided anything at all, and that is the whole difference. Goodwill is a feeling. A ramp is a decision somebody has to make. So is a form someone can hear, and a door wide enough to get through.
That is why the Diversity, Equality and Inclusion session at the Business Week Afrika Summit exists, and why it is organized by
They are the right people to hand it over because they did not write a value, they wrote a system. With the UN Global Compact, UN Women authored the Women's Empowerment Principles: 7 principles a company signs, runs in its own workplace and supply chain, and then reports on publicly. Nearly 2,000 chief executives have signed the CEO statement of support. There is even a free gender gap analysis tool a business can run on itself. And their current global campaign, For ALL Women and Girls, is going after freedom from poverty, a digital revolution and real decision making power, which read as a business owner is your market, your tools and your seat.
The part most founders miss is that this door works both ways. Your business has a gap you never chose. And you are locked out too: tenders and supply deals get set aside for businesses owned by women and young people, big buyers keep supplier lists with rules nobody ever shows you, and you could qualify for some of it right now and not know.
Then you take it onto the exhibition floor, where the businesses you should be buying from are already trading.
Which door would you fix first, the one into your business or the one into theirs? 👇
🎟️ Both doors open on the same ticket, Oct 1 to 2: https://apps.little.africa/events/105
