I was delighted to honour the invitation of our valued Wellbeing Foundation Africa Social Impact Partner Reckitt with CEO Kris Licht to share my views as a Speaker on the roundtable “Catalysing Systemic Change: Scaling Innovation in Health & Hygiene” during the United Nations General Assembly High-Level Week.

Co-Hosted by Serena Williams of Serena Ventures, and Jacqueline Novogratz of Acumen, and co-convened with Goals House and the Health Innovation Exchange, our discussions were expertly moderated by David Shukman, with featured guests including Honourable Pemmy Majodina of the South African Government.

I commend the launch of Reckitt Catalyst, a five-year, £10 million commitment partnering with Serena Williams as their first Entrepreneur-in-Residence, to support up to 200 women and underrepresented founders across Africa, Asia, and Latin America. The initiative recognises that although women-led start-ups deliver 35% better returns and create six times more jobs than male-led companies, they continue to receive only 2% of global venture capital.

With a proven track record of supporting 60 entrepreneurs across 13 countries since 2020, helping unlock access to health, clean water, and sanitation for one million people, and impacting seven million people in 40 countries in 2023 alone, including in Nigeria through our Wellbeing Foundation Africa, Dettol Nigeria, Hygiene Quest Programme, Reckitt has established deep expertise in scaling grassroots health and hygiene innovations through partnerships such as ours, and with organisations such as Yunus Social Business, where I serve as a Grand Global Jury Member for the Fight for Access Accelerator Nigeria.

At this pivotal convening, the message was clear, the solutions exist, and the path to scale lies in collective will, catalytic financing, and mentorship that recognises both entrepreneurial vision and maternal insight as central to global progress.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Toyin Saraki (@toyinsaraki)