The narrative for Africa has for eons remained that of the ‘dark continent’ forever in the grip of stagnation; so much so that in May 2000, The Economist ran a cover story on Africa, headlined “The Hopeless Continent”.

In a move similar to eating humble pie in December 2011, the continent was again on The Economist’s cover, this time under the headline “Africa Rising”. Another five years on, Africa’s attraction is no longer in question.

However, while there have been major improvements, the continent remains one of the world’s least developed, most indebted, most food-insecure and most marginalized.

By focusing on sustainability and shared value, African businesses are now poised to drive significant growth through innovative solutions that seek to address these market failures.

However, a step change is required to deliver progress at a larger scale and greater speed.

Accenture and the NBI (National Business Initiative), together with African and global business leaders from across the continent, have partnered to develop an innovative new study with the aim of helping businesses operating in Africa to identify and deliver key innovation opportunities to build a more sustainable future.

The study titled “Reimagining Africa’s Future: A Blueprint for Sustainable Business In Africa” conducted by leading global management consulting, technology services and outsourcing company;

Accenture and a voluntary coalition of South African and multinational companies; the National Business Initiative (NBI), was released recently at the World Economic Forum (WEF) currently taking place in Cape Town, South Africa.

Three business leaders were selected as‘Champions’ to spearhead the initiative study based on their commitment and significant contribution towards sustainable business practices across Africa.

They are AigbojeAig-Imoukhuede, president of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE); Robert Collymore, Chief Executive Officer of Safaricom Limited and SizweNxasana; Chief Executive Officer of FirstRand Limited.

Accenture and the NBI together with African and global business leaders from across the continent, partnered to develop this innovative new study with the aim of helping businesses operating in Africa to identify and deliver key innovation opportunities to build a more sustainable future.

The report is based on consultations with over 70 CEOs and world business leaders from Africa’s leading companies, and suggests that scaling innovations in four categories – new consumption opportunities, collaborative operating models, resource efficiency, and trust through transparency – can help drive development across the continent.

Proffering new areas of innovation, the report highlighted the need to capture new consumption opportunities with the consciousness of the reality that Africa’s natural resources though important, are not enough to give the continent a permanent boost.

With an emerging cache of Africans with growing demand and the rising need for products and services that meet long-standing needs in new ways.

Companies can generate new revenue streams by developing new consumption opportunities for the rising African consumer class, either making incremental improvements or transformational changes to their current business models through new offerings that directly address pressing needs in areas like access to markets, health, education, energy and financial services.

Businesses on the continent and especially in Nigeria need to realize that collaborative operating models that expand economic opportunity, raising productivity and increasing growth are crucial, but not sufficient.

The quality of growth—its composition and equity—is just as important for alleviating systemic development challenges. It requires operations that directly integrate the low-income population as entrepreneurs, suppliers, distributors, retailers, employees and consumers, to create localized and inclusive value chains.

It also means ensuring well-managed operations (e.g. health and safety, labor standards, human rights, gender diversity and inclusiveness in the workforce, as well as environmental responsibility).

Other findings in the report emphasize the need to drive resource efficiency; due to rising global affluence, resource availability cannot keep up with demand.

The emerging trend in Africa is that the linear model of growth is no longer viable.

To reduce this impact, companies must do a few things as pure business necessity: Firstly, they can promote circular economy concepts using “lasting” resources only, to break the link between scarcity and economic activity.

Secondly, more resource “liquidity” can be created in markets by making products and assets more accessible and easy to convert between users and industries.

Thirdly, companies can focus on reducing the amount of scarce energy, water and transport they use in their daily operations.

The era of secrecy is over; trust earned through transparency is more fundamental to a healthy business than the belief held by consumers, the public, investors, regulators, suppliers and stakeholders that they are doing business with a trustworthy organization.

With the growing trade across Africa, issues of corruption and modern slavery pose particular risks to trust in Africa.

For those with poor operations visibility, the new era of transparency creates significant risks.

Companies can build trust and drive productivity gains by embedding high standards throughout their value chain and transparently sharing information.

This report offers a blueprint for unlocking these high-value opportunities, for Nigeria in this new era; a fact represented by the number of Nigerian CEOs who partook in the survey – from banking to manufacturing including Aliko Dangote, President and CEO Dangote Group; Stephen Onasanya, outgoing CEO First Bank of Nigeria Limited; Herbert Wigwe, CEO and Group Managing Director Access Bank Plc and Osagie Okunbor, Managing Director Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Limited.

As Nigeria stands in the hope of a paradigm shift – in business and politically – the rising consumer class presents enormous new opportunities.

Fast movers can get to the prize first with innovations that leverage scalable and cost-effective technologies and collaborative partnerships to improve quality of life locally while broadening their markets and contributing to the future success of this incredible continent.