The Local Network team took part in the UN Global Compact Regional Meetings for Africa, held virtually over three days from 25 to 27 November 2025. The regional meetings are the point in the calendar where Country Networks across the continent come together ahead of the new delivery year, and the Nigeria team engaged alongside ten other African Local Networks over the course of the sessions.
Country Networks across Africa operate in very different regulatory, economic and political environments, but they carry the same mandate: mobilising business around the Ten Principles of the UN Global Compact and the Sustainable Development Goals. The regional meetings exist to turn that shared mandate into coordinated plans rather than parallel ones, so that networks are not solving the same problems in isolation.
Three items shaped the agenda. The first was alignment on the 2026 to 2030 regional strategy, which sets the direction of travel for the region over the coming five years. The second was the development of 2026 work plans, translating that strategy into the programmes, accelerators and convenings each network will run in the year ahead. The third was a review of 2025 performance and learnings, which tested both of the first two against what had actually worked on the ground.
For Nigeria, the performance review carried particular weight. The Network fields one of the largest participant bases on the continent, having recorded the highest number of registered companies in the African region for the Business and Human Rights Accelerator, and the sessions offered an opportunity to share delivery experience from the accelerator programmes while drawing on the approaches other networks have taken to membership growth, partner engagement and reporting.
The meetings closed with strengthened regional alignment and coordinated planning across the African networks, giving the region a common starting point for the new strategic cycle.