2023 OVERVIEW
This report reflects GCNSA comprehensive progress during 2022 and highlights the Strategy and Plans for 2023.
Programmes Overview 2023:
During 2023, we continued to engage UN Global Compact Participants in South Africa to scale actions on key areas ranging from climate action to gender equality, human rights & SDG integration, as well as SDG innovation. Local economic conditions remained challenging in the backdrop of an increasingly polarized global governance landscape. Business must be more ambitious and move Forward Faster.
Participating companies have derived value through Accelerators, new content in the Academy, the Compact Dialogues platform, the Leaders’ Summit, the Africa Business Leaders Coalition (ABLC) and the Global Africa Business Initiative. I urge all participating companies to engage as much as possible through these platforms, as they are all tailored to deepen integration of sustainability into the business, drive sustainability leadership and catalyze collective action.
Our strategic growth areas include delivering tailored and segmented sustainability value to SMEs; setting up a repository for sustainability data; delivering segmented SDG value to key sectors; and enhancing engagement in the Network through member-driven committees.
Programmatic Offerings
The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development encourages member states to conduct regular and inclusive reviews of progress, which are country-led and country-driven. These national reviews serve as a basis for the regular reviews at the UN High-Level Political Forum (HLPF). Reviews are voluntary, state-led, undertaken by both developed and developing countries, and involve multiple stakeholders. it will be the second time that South Africa has undertaken a Voluntary National Review, the first report was completed in 2019.
South Africa will once again report back to the United Nations Member States on the countrys collective performance on the Sustainable Development Goals in July 2024. For the second time GCNSA is the
governments private sector partner on this process.
To enhance the delivery of the VNR , we have strategically partnered with Business Unity South Africa (BUSA), Business Leadership South Africa (BLSA), Minerals Council South Africa and National Business
Initiative (NBI).
As part of our mobilisation data gathering, we have successfully hosted 6 online industry Round Tables and 10 Priority Round Tables. The key objectives of VNR project are to:
- Showcase South Africa’s Private sector SDGs progress: successes, challenges, and opportunities.
- Generate SDG data and trends that will inform further scaling of SDG action.
- Highlight private sector SDGs performance by industry.
- Enhance and create new collaboration in private sector (cross industries) and with other stakeholders (NGO, government, funders)
- Facilitate peer learning.
