The Africa CEO Forum opens today in Kigali. Two days, eight panel sessions, nine country investment presentations, and over 2,500 decision-makers in one room. Here is what the programme actually covers and why it matters. Threshold Media Group is on the ground for the full two days, covering the forum live across its platforms.
The theme is a provocation, not a slogan
This year’s edition runs under the theme “The Scale Imperative: Why Africa Must Embrace Shared Ownership.” The word “imperative” is deliberate. It signals that the forum is moving past the diagnosis phase. The question is no longer whether African markets are fragmented. It is what the private sector is actually prepared to do about it.
Who is in the room
The speaker list gives the forum real weight. On the public side: Presidents Kagame and Tinubu, Prime Ministers from Mozambique, Côte d’Ivoire and Guinea, and a ministerial delegation spanning energy, mines, finance and health from Angola, Senegal, Gabon and Nigeria. On the institutional side: the IFC Managing Director Makhtar Diop and the African Development Bank President Sidi Ould Tah. On the private side: Aliko Dangote, Abdul Samad Rabiu, James Mwangi of Equity Bank, Jeremy Awori of Ecobank, and Aigboje Aig-Imoukhuede of Access Holdings. Knowledge partners include BCG, McKinsey, PwC and S&P Global.
What is on the agenda
The programme covers eight sessions across two days. Key topics include the financing gap in Africa’s real estate sector, estimated at one trillion dollars in required capital; the strategic implications of Asian industrial overcapacity and its impact on African markets; the acceleration of upstream gas in West and Central Africa; and the structural conditions for cross-border investment at scale.
Nine countries will present investment pipelines through dedicated sessions: Rwanda, Morocco, Angola, Gabon, Tanzania, Côte d’Ivoire, Benin, Guinea and South Africa. These are not ceremonial presentations. They are structured moments for governments to put concrete opportunities in front of investors who are already in the building.
What to watch
The most consequential conversations at a forum like this rarely happen on stage. They happen in the margins, between the sessions, over a working lunch or in a corridor exchange. The deals that get announced in the weeks after a forum like this are often the product of those moments.
What the programme signals is a shift in tone: from aspiration to accountability. Shared ownership, cross-border capital, regional champions. These are not new ideas. What is new is the pressure to show results.
TMG will be reporting from Kigali in real time. Follow our coverage on LinkedIn, Instagram and across our platforms for live updates, key takeaways and on-the-ground interviews throughout the two days.