Call to action – Tackling the consequences of global excessive imbalances for Africa Africa Forward Summit.

We, the Heads of State and Government of African countries, met on 12 May 2026 in Nairobi, Kenya, at the Africa Forward Summit, together with the Heads of State of France as well as representatives of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank Group, the African Development Bank Group (AfDB), the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), the European Investment Bank (EIB), the Green Climate Fund (GCF), the West African Development Bank (BOAD) and other development actors such as the Agence Française de Développement Group (AFD), the Pact for Prosperity, People and the Planet (4P).

We held a fruitful exchange of views on the current global economic situation and its consequences for Africa. We met against the backdrop of rising geopolitical tensions and conflicts such as the ongoing conflict in the Middle East, geo-economic competition and instability, deepening inequalities, increasing global economic uncertainty, fragmentation and global macroeconomic imbalances, which disproportionately affect developing economies, particularly in Africa. These developments compound existing vulnerabilities in global supply chains, energy markets and food security, with worrying consequences for African economies.

We recall that Africa is both a continent of opportunities and challenges : it must turn demographic transition into a demographic dividend by creating a labour market capable of absorbing more than 10 million of young people per year. It must support rapid urbanisation that requires basic infrastructure, industrialise and develop added value for the benefit of local populations, enable just energy transitions and adaptation to climate change, and fully contribute to global technological developments. We stress that Africa’s human capital, dynamism and innovation as well as its natural resource endowment, including critical minerals, are key assets for its future growth and sustainable development, and should serve as catalysts for local value addition, beneficiation, and job creation on the continent.

We acknowledge that the challenges of the continent are exacerbated by the consequences of global macroeconomic imbalances. The persistent reliance on raw material exports in international trade (hydrocarbons, cocoa, vanilla, coffee and minerals), increasing sovereign debts, the growing development financing gap and the limited diversification of African economies constitute a source of vulnerability. If left unaddressed, excessive global imbalances across the world’s major economies would further deepen this vulnerability. Indeed, we observe that structural overcapacities, together with distortive non-market policies and practices, hinder the industrialization and the economic development of exports from the African continent. We also note that the proliferation of unilateral and uncoordinated trade measures weigh on Africa’s integration in the global economy. These overcapacities artificially depress global commodity prices, undermine the competitiveness of nascent African industries and discourage foreign direct investment in productive sectors across the continent, thereby hampering structural transformation and job creation. These dynamics also contribute to elevated borrowing costs, constrained fiscal space, exchange rate volatility, and reduced access to affordable long-term development finance for African economies.

We reaffirm that a rules-based, non-discriminatory, fair, open, inclusive, equitable, sustainable and transparent multilateral trading system is indispensable. Addressing overcapacities, curbing distortive subsidies and ensuring fair market access are essential to enabling Africa’s industrialization. We emphasize the need to promote African regional value chains capable of creating decent jobs, fostering technology transfer and strengthening the continent’s industrial resilience.

Strong, inclusive and sustainable economic growth is the cornerstone of economic prosperity. We call on the world’s major economies to work together to achieve a balanced and growth-oriented macroeconomic policy mix that supports global economic security and resilience, maintains well-regulated financial markets and ensures that all of our citizens can benefit from that growth.

We urge the world’s major economies to recognise their shared responsibility in reducing excessive imbalances, and to move towards decisive commitments to enact the appropriate domestic policies in a coordinated manner aiming to rebalance their growth models in a way that supports a balanced and sustainable growth for all countries, including emerging and developing countries, while decisively reducing global macroeconomic imbalances. We finally call on those economies as well as international financial institutions, in particular the IMF, to strengthen the surveillance 
of global imbalances and to ensure appropriate multilateral surveillance to monitor those commitments. We encourage international financial institutions to take greater account of the specific vulnerabilities of African countries affected by conflict, climate shocks, and structural development constraints.

We call on France, together with Kenya which is associated to the G7, to convey this important concern of the African continent to the Summit in Evian in June 2026.