Nearly ten years after French President Emmanuel Macron’s Ouagadougou speech, which laid the foundations for renewed relations between France and African international locations, the Republic of Kenya and the French Republic will co-host the inaugural Africa Ahead Summit (AFS) 2026 in Nairobi on Could 11 – 12.
The Summit can be held on the Kenyatta Worldwide Conference Centre (KICC) and the College of Nairobi.
This historic occasion marks the primary time such a high-level summit is held in an English-speaking African nation, will mirror the profound transformation in its ties with African international locations which France undertook nearly 10 years in the past, based mostly on acknowledgement of the previous and a will to construct balanced, forward-looking partnerships.
It additionally alerts a decisive shift away from historic silos towards a unified, continental method to progress. The Summit comes at a pivotal turning level globally. From the local weather disaster to the fast frontier of know-how, right now’s fashionable challenges demand a strategic reset.
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For many years, narratives about Africa have been pre-written by others, usually emphasising on threat, fragmentation, and battle. Concurrently, the connection with France has usually been seen by way of the lens of a donor-recipient dynamic. The Africa Ahead Summit seeks to disrupt these binaries.
It strikes previous the ‘Francophone vs. Anglophone’ divide to interact with Africa as a single, dynamic market of 1.5 billion individuals. This isn’t a gathering to “declare” a relationship, however to construct one on the bottom, led by the innovators, entrepreneurs, and younger creatives who’re the true digital natives of the continent.
The AFS 2026 is designed as an implementation-focused platform, prioritising bankable investments over conventional diplomatic communique.
Will probably be a chance to focus on the dedication of France, Kenya and different African international locations to stepping up mutual funding and to constructing and financing tangible options to frequent challenges, together with well being system strengthening, meals sovereignty, digital competitiveness, vitality entry and connectivity.
It would illustrate the wealthy variety of relations between Africa and France and is predicted to convene Heads of State and Authorities, senior public officers, enterprise leaders, civil society representatives, younger individuals, artists, the diaspora and members of the worldwide media, with particular emphasis on younger individuals and the non-public sector.
Particularly, Rwanda’s President H.E Paul Kagame will co-chair a roundtable on synthetic intelligence, a fast-growing sector by which the nation is at the moment one the main actors on the African continent. Internationally famend artists, together with Sherrie Silver, are additionally anticipated to take part in a panel devoted to the challenges of the African cultural and inventive industries.
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All delegates and journalists meaning to take part within the Summit are required to register by way of the official on-line portal accessible at: https://africaforwardsummit.com/attend.
Media practitioners ought to submit their functions underneath the “Media Accreditation” part inside the similar portal. For extra info, go to: www.africaforwardsummit.go.ke or be a part of the dialog on social media through: #AfricaForwardSummit and #AfricaFrance2026
