African Newspage Founder Appointed President of Afrikan Youth Business Council, AfYBC

AfYBC

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The Founder/Editor-in-Chief of the African Newspage, Mr Adam Alqali, has been appointed as President of the Afrikan Youth Business Council (AfYBC), the continental apex body for youth-led private sector entities advocating for a youth-friendly business policy environment in Africa.

The AfYBC was launched in December 2022 by the African Union Commissioner for Economic Development, Trade, Tourism, Industry and Minerals (ETTIM), Amb. Albert Muchanga, on the sidelines of the YouLead Summit in Arusha, Tanzania. The Council’s vision is to see Africa’s young entrepreneurs and their business entities become active players in intra-African trade in the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) era.

“I thank the Board of the AfYBC for their confidence in my ability to steer the affairs of the Council, which I must confess is not going to be an easy task, since the Council is still in its infancy. Therefore, I am dedicating myself to building all necessary structures for the Council and implementing programmes that will have a far-reaching effect in terms of empowering young African entrepreneurs with the right skills, capacity and access to information,” Mr Alqali said.

The new AfYBC chief assured that the Council will work with intergovernmental entities such as the African Union Commission, the AfCFTA Secretariat, Regional Economic Communities (RECs), the International Trade Centre (ITC), the Africa Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) as well as development agencies to foster a youth-friendly economic and trade policies as Africa begins the implementation of the AfCFTA.

“Our objective is to foster access to financing and markets for young entrepreneurs and youth-led enterprises and start-ups in Africa and globally as well as advocate for a youth-friendly economic policy and legislation environment. We also seek to be the continental reference point for effective individual and corporate business upskilling for young entrepreneurs and youth-led enterprises to enable their commercially meaningful participation in all economic spheres through trade in goods, services, skills and talent,” Alqali assured.

Alqali is an international award-winning journalist and mediapreneur who in 2016 founded the African Newspage, a digital newsmagazine focused on reporting Africa’s development affairs. Among others, he was a winner of the 2018 West Africa Media Excellence and Conference Awards (WAMECA) in the SDGs reporting category and was one of only 15 international media representatives invited by the Government of South Africa to cover the 4th Science Forum South Africa in December 2018 in Pretoria, South Africa.

As a media consultant, he has consulted for organisations such as GIZ, the African Union, ECOWAS, UK-FCDO, USAID and TRALAC etc. In 2021, Mr Alqali was part of an international team of journalists, media entrepreneurs and academics who participated in Inflection Point International (IPI) research – a global study about the impact, threats and sustainability of independent digital media.