The Africa CEO Forum Annual Summit opens in Kigali, Rwanda on May 14, for a two- day gathering of the continent’s most senior business leaders, heads of state, and international investors, with organisers describing this year’s edition as a defining moment for African capital.
The summit, regarded as Africa’s foremost annual gathering of private sector decision- makers, will be held under the theme ‘Scale or Fail: Why Africa Must Embrace Shared Ownership’, a direct challenge to African nations and corporations to move beyond nationally-bounded investment and build the cross-border partnerships needed to compete in an increasingly fragmented global economy.
Among the heads of state confirmed are Rwanda’s Paul Kagame, Nigeria’s Bola Tinubu, Gabon’s Brice Clotaire Oligui Nguema, and the prime ministers of Mozambique, Côte d’Ivoire, and Guinea. International Finance Corporation (IFC) Managing Director Makhtar Diop; African Development Bank (AfDB) President, Sidi Ould Tah; and the Arab Bank for Economic Development in Africa (BADEA) President, Abdullah Al-Musaibeeh will represent the multilateral institutions.
The private sector roster spans the continent, with confirmed speakers including Aliko Dangote, Abdul Samad Rabiu, Aigboje Aig-Imoukhuede, James Mwangi of Equity Bank, Jeremy Awori of Ecobank, and Ahmed Elsewedy of Elsewedy Electric. The Forum, founded in 2012 by Jeune Afrique Media Group and permanently co-hosted by the IFC of the World Bank Group, drew more than 2,800 participants from 90 countries at its last edition. Over its two most recent summits, it facilitated more than US$1 billion in signed investment commitments.
The case for shared ownership Organisers argue that the retreat of multilateralism, declining aid flows, and the growing industrial dominance of Asian and North American corporations have made scale an existential question for the continent. Asia’s leading economies have spent decades building corporations large enough to project influence globally. Europe, despite constructing the world’s most integrated common market, is only now reckoning with the cost of having failed to nurture truly continental champions.
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The message for Africa, the Forum states plainly, is that economic patriotism is a strategic liability it can no longer afford. The shared ownership framework the Forum is advancing rests on three pillars. The first is shared equity; mobilising African institutional investors, including pension funds, to co-invest across borders and build the kind of balance sheet scale that continental projects require.
The second is shared infrastructure, developing cross-border mega-projects that serve regional rather than purely national needs, along the lines of the Lobito Corridor. The third is shared frameworks — expanding successful regional models such as the Organisation for the Harmonisation of Business Law in Africa (OHADA) legal architecture and positioning the Pan-African Payment and Settlement System (PAPSS) as the standard for cross-border transactions across the continent.
“If Africa wants to compete in a world defined by scale, it must move beyond economic patriotism and embrace a new model: African capital investing together,” Amir Ben Yahmed, CEO of Jeune Afrique Media Group and the Africa CEO Forum, said. Programme and investment showcases. The two-day programme spans eight panel sessions covering African industrial AI and the sovereignty question, real estate financing, the implications of Asian trade overcapacity for African manufacturers, next-generation mining project design, talent mobility across borders, and the conditions under which long-term institutional capital ill flow into African infrastructure at the scale the continent requires.
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Running parallel to the main programme, dedicated ‘Invest In’ sessions will see nine countries — among them Rwanda, Morocco, Angola, Gabon, Tanzania, Côte d’Ivoire, Benin, Guinea, and South Africa — present investment pipelines directly to assembled investors and executives. Knowledge partners for the 2026 edition include BCG, McKinsey & Company, PwC, S&P Global, and GSMA. The summit will be held at the Kigali Convention Centre and is co-hosted by the Rwanda Development Board.
