Local entrepreneur joins Clinton Global Initiative
The CGI Annual Meeting brings together heads of state, Nobel Prize laureates, heads of corporates, foundations and NGOs, major philanthropists and members of the media.
Mr Yusuf Randera-Rees, the founder of local entrepreneurship development company the Awethu Project, has become a member of the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) for 2015.
Now in its 10th year, former president Bill Clinton established the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI), an initiative of the Clinton Foundation, to convene global leaders to create and implement solutions to the world’s most pressing challenges.
“South Africa needs skyscrapers. As a young country, we need achievements and institutions that inspire us and set a standard of excellence to aspire to. Awethu is working incredibly hard to be one such skyscraper,” said Mr Randera-Rees.
Awethu is an entrepreneurship development company systematically working to solve the problem of the “missing middle” in South Africa, that is, the low numbers of quality small and medium enterprises which can drive economic growth and reduce unemployment. Awethu is one of the country’s most progressive and innovative entrepreneurship development companies and is both youth- and black-owned.
“We intend to use our access to the CGI platform to showcase South Africa and its remarkable entrepreneurial potential to the world, and to be a fundamental part of efforts to make social and economic changes on a local and international scale. Systemic global change is what has driven Awethu from the start,” said Mr Randera-Rees.
The CGI Annual Meeting brings together heads of state, Nobel Prize laureates, heads of corporates, foundations and NGOs, major philanthropists and members of the media.
Members of the CGI Community have made more than 3 100 commitment to action plans for addressing a significant global challenge, which have improved the lives of over 430 million people in more than 180 countries.
Mr Randera-Rees’s CGI membership will allow him access to the CGI meetings in 2015, including the Winter Meeting, which takes place this month in New York. He will also attend the CGI Annual Meeting in September, which is also in New York.
Through this membership, Awethu will also make a commitment to action prior to the Annual Meeting.
