At the 79th session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), which took place in the final week of September 2024, MTN Group took part in a variety of activities.
At the UNGA, leaders from around the world spoke about how important it is to work together and find common solutions to the world’s most pressing problems.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres urged world leaders to work toward achieving less impunity and more accountability, less inequality and more justice, less uncertainty and more opportunity at the UNGA, which he described as a “place where solutions are made.”
Chairman Mcebisi Jonas represented MTN at the event; Ralph Mupita, President and CEO of the Group; Ebenezer Asante, Senior Vice President for Markets; Ernest Ndukwe, chairman of MTN Nigeria; Karl Toriola, CEO of MTN Nigeria; and Thato Motlanthe, Group Executive for Investor Relations in addition to Acting Group Chief Sustainability and Corporate Affairs Officer.
The Group attended the UN Broadband Commission on Sustainable Development’s Fall Meeting, where the promotion of broadband in developing nations was a major topic of discussion.
The meeting was titled “Towards a Resilient, Safe, and Inclusive Digital Future” and was presided over by Rwanda’s Minister of ICT and Innovation, Paula Ingabire.
It centered on forming partnerships with governments, civil society, the private sector, and international organizations.
The meeting’s main topics included:
• Bridging the digital divide by overcoming broadband coverage and usage challenges
• Enhancing resilience against fibre cuts and disruptions
• Interoperability between terrestrial and satellite techs
• The uneven spread of technology in the age of opportunity and possibility
• The potential of AI and the need to build AI skills
• Developing business and innovation friendly policies
• Ensuring data ethics and governance for customer safety
• Geopolitics and the requirement for unified standards
Investments that are necessary and their returns versus the cost of capital
• The need for tax breaks to facilitate increased penetration.
• Engaging with nation states
These included interactions with Ghana’s President Nana Akufo-Addo; the ministers of communications from Ghana, Nigeria, Rwanda, and South Africa; the foreign and international relations ministers of Nigeria and South Africa; together with the minister of competition, trade, and industry in South Africa.
The creation of unified and dependable policies across the continent was one of the many varied topics of discussion; favorable policy and regulatory environments for device financing; the internet of things; structure and consolidation of the market; fostering competition and investment; visa policies; and MTN’s contribution to the fiscus in terms of skills, infrastructure, and CSR investment.
MTN also participated in business forums on strengthening public-private partnerships that were held by the governments of Nigeria and South Africa.
They also had some collaborative initiatives on the sidelines of the UNGA meeting, in addition to the aforementioned. Some of these were:
They presented MTN’s deliberate efforts to advance diversity and inclusion and achieve gender equity by 2030 at the UN Women’s HeForShe Summit.
In addition, the company emphasized the significance of women’s contributions to MTN’s development over the past three decades as well as the need for the world to concentrate on education and male allies in order to eradicate stereotypes and biases.
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The ‘Forward Africa Leaders Symposium’, where strategic partnerships and investing in vital digital public infrastructure were the primary topics of discussion.
The Africa-America Institute Awards, which honored initiatives to boost Africans’ abilities and encourage the continent’s development through skill development and higher education.
MTN also took advantage of the opportunity to travel to Washington, D.C., to meet with a number of officials and discuss geopolitical and economic issues, such as the war in Sudan, which requires significantly more support for the economy and humanitarian aid.
Engaging with members of the International Monetary Fund, the Congressional Black Caucus, the National Security Council, and the House Committee on Foreign Affairs were among the participants in the meetings.
