Africa Forward Summit in Kenya.

Nearly nine years after President Emmanuel Macron’s speech in Ouagadougou, the “Africa Forward: Partnerships Between Africa and France for Innovation and Growth” Summit marks an important milestone that reflects the renewed commitment to France’s relations with African countries across all areas.

Co-organized with Kenya on May 11 and 12, 2026, the summit gives center stage to all the stakeholders who contribute to France's partnership with African countries on a daily basis: heads of state and government, business leaders, cultural figures, representatives from the worlds of sports, civil society, the diaspora, and youth. More than 7,000 participants attended.

The transformation of the partnership initiated in 2017 by the President of the Republic between Africa and France is at the core of this summit:

• promoting mutually beneficial partnerships on an equal footing, 
• forging ties through our youth and our diasporas,
• encouraging the scaling up of private investment on the African continent to address financing needs (development, climate, etc.),
• facing our shared history head-on, through the unprecedented work undertaken since 2017 on memory and the restitution of cultural property looted during the colonial period.

This Summit provides an opportunity to highlight the strengthening of the economic and financial partnership between African countries and France by promoting cross-border private investment between Africa and France and showcasing the strengths of France’s offerings in a fragmented geopolitical environment.

As a result, €23 billion in investments in Africa have been announced, corresponding to the creation of more than 250,000 direct jobs in France and Africa, and many more indirect jobs. Of the €23 billion, €14 billion are French investments in Africa; €9 billion are African investments in Africa.

By making the mobilisation of private capital in Africa a priority, the Africa Forward Summit builds in particular on the Paris Summit on the Financing of African Economies in 2021, the Paris Summit for a New Global Financing Pact in 2023, and the African Union–European Union (AU–EU) Summits held in Brussels under the French Presidency of the European Union in February 2022 and in Luanda in November 2025. It marks an important step towards ensuring that the voices of African countries are heard ahead of the G7 Summit in Évian in June 2026.