Unstoppable Africa 2026 Agenda

Africa is done being grateful for raw deals. It is now about who owns the value created from African resources, markets and talent — and whether the next decade flips the script from exporting raw potential to building African firms that control entire value chains and the infrastructure around them. Africa already supplies 69% of the world's cobalt and 76% of its manganese, yet captures less than 1% of the global value from clean-energy manufacturing and refines under 5% of most critical minerals it produces — while UNCTAD warns that of 73 mineral partnerships struck globally, only 27 link developing and developed nations on terms built to move up the value chain, not lock them into extraction. This high‑level panel reframes how Africa engages on critical minerals and infrastructure financing, focusing on clear frameworks of engagement that turn resource wealth into processing plants, logistics corridors, hospitality assets and conference centres on African balance sheets, not just ore shipped offshore.
With concrete examples of how mineral-linked revenues, fiscal tools and partnerships can support broader infrastructure ambitions, our powerhouse line‑up of heads of state, industrial champions and financiers will dive straight into the moves that matter now — renegotiating extractive contracts, insisting on local and regional processing and technology transfer, tying off‑take agreements to shared infrastructure, and crowding in capital that keeps ownership and upside in African hands. With global demand for these minerals set to climb sharply over the next decade the goal is simple and radical: a decade from now, Africa should be exporting fewer raw commodities and far more processed materials, climate‑smart products, platforms and global brands, under deal frameworks that citizens can understand and leaders can proudly defend.
Scene setter: African Heads of State

Panelists: 
●    Ms. Nolitha Fakude, Chairperson, Anglo American South Africa CONFIRMED
●    Mr. Eddy Kioni, CEO, BUENASSA (DRC) CONFIRMED
●    Mr. Tidjane Thiam, General Partner, Allied Critical Minerals Fund CONFIRMED
●    Ms. Stella Li, Executive Vice President, BYD Company Limited CONFIRMED
 

For the first Unstoppable Africa 2026 fireside chat, we welcome two-time NBA All-Star Luol Deng — for a moment where resilience meets inspiration. From fleeing war-torn Sudan as a child to becoming a global basketball icon, Deng's journey is a testament to his unstoppable spirit. As President of the South Sudan Basketball Federation, he has personally funded the national programme for four years — building courts, an indoor academy, and a pathway to Paris 2024 in a country that still has no indoor arena. Off the court, Deng has built a $200 million real estate portfolio through his firm D3N9, spanning the US, the Bahamas, and East Africa, and now channels that same capital discipline into the business case for sport: with only five of Africa's 54 nations holding arenas ready for top-tier competition, he argues infrastructure is the continent's next great investable frontier. Witness a living sports legend whose vision for Africa's future is as bold as his past is inspiring.

• Ms. Sanda Ojiambo, Assistant Secretary-General, United Nations Global Compact
• H.E. Mahmoud Ali Youssouf, Chairperson, African Union Commission 
• H.E. António Guterres, Secretary-General, United Nations 

Africa’s economic transformation is no longer theoretical — African and global companies are already investing, building and adding value across the continent. This High‑Level Opening Panel brings together African and international heads of state and CEOs to ask a forward‑looking question: what leadership choices, in Africa and beyond, will ensure that Africa’s agency, business growth and value creation help power business, scale economies and shape the next decade of global prosperity? The conversation is rooted in what is already working and focuses on how deeper cooperation with global partners can unlock larger markets, more resilient supply chains and new engines of green and digital growth.

Against the backdrop of critical minerals, fast‑growing consumer markets, vast renewable potential and the world’s youngest population, panellists will focus on practical, shared opportunities. They will explore how the AfCFTA and regional integration can scale existing success stories into continental value chains; how green and digital infrastructure can accelerate productivity and value addition; and how innovative financing and smarter trade and investment frameworks can de‑risk and crowd in private capital at scale. The session will spotlight the collaborations, reforms and leadership choices needed now to power business, deepen value addition, scale economies and shape a more prosperous future for Africa and its partners.

Panelists:

• Heads of State
• Mr. Samaila Zubairu, President & CEO, African Finance Corporation (AFC) 
• Ms. Mandy DeFilippo, CEO of Americas, Europe, Middle East and Africa, Standard Chartered

Africa is no longer just asking for fairer finance; it is building its own systems to change the game. With new African‑led facilities and pooled institutions such as AfDB’s New African Financial Architecture (NAFA) and its 11‑point Abidjan Consensus, the African Union’s new Africa‑wide infrastructure financing facility, and the growing firepower of the Alliance of African Multilateral Financial Institutions (AAMFI), the continent is beginning to decide how capital moves, what it costs and who leads it. This session showcases that build‑out: African institutions, pensions, banks and fintechs designing vehicles, guarantees and platforms that unlock African capital, strengthen regional financial institutions and firm up Africa’s voice in global financial governance. The aim is clear: to make Africa’s own systems a primary engine financing the continent — on Africa’s terms, and in service of genuine financial sovereignty for the continent. 

Panelists: 

• Ms. Nonkululeko Nyembezi, Chairperson, Standard Bank Group 
• Ms. Stephanie von Friedeburg, Managing Director, Public Sector Banking, Citi 

Moderator: Mr. Acha Leke, Chairman (Africa), McKinsey & Company

Massad Boulos' mantras for Africa are "peace, partnerships, prosperity" and "trade not aid." In this rapid-fire session, the Senior Advisor to President Trump on Arab and African affairs unpacks how Washington is approaching Africa's critical minerals, trade corridors, and path to peace. The conversation explores how the Trump administration is designing peace and stability efforts as platforms for long-term investment and partnership.

The AfCFTA was never meant to be a government‑only project; it’s the operating system for the people who create the jobs: African businesses. Yet in the evolution of the world’s largest free trade area, firms are not yet the architects helping shape the rules, tools, and deals that can tilt global terms of trade in Africa's favour on everything from critical minerals to green industrial exports.

This high‑energy working session asks a blunt question: what does it practically look like for the private sector to own and drive the AfCFTA? CEOs will bring real “pain points” from the field—rules of origin, NTBs, standards, customs, tax harmonisation, trade finance—and map them to the specific AfCFTA instruments and national policies that must change fast for the private sector to be able to take the wheel. Here policy makers engage with the private sector to move business from the consultation room into the design studio: standing seats on national AfCFTA committees, sector working groups co‑chaired by business, national AfCFTA business compacts, and hard feedback loops powered by NTB platforms, business indices and dispute‑resolution mechanisms that actually work.

Panelists: 

• Ms. Phuthi Mahanyele-Dabengwa, CEO & Executive Director, Naspers & Group Executive Director, Prosus Group & Member, African Business Leaders Coalition (ABLC)
• H.E. Francisca Tatchouop Belobe, Commissioner for Economic Development, Trade, Tourism, Industry and Minerals (ETTIM), African Union Commission (AUC)

Africa's energy future is shifting from ambition to acceleration — and this session proves it live. History is made on stage: the first close of the Decentralised Renewable Energy (DRE) Fund. Aligned with the goals of Mission 300, it's the first time an African sovereign wealth fund — the Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority — co-leads a dedicated renewables vehicle, alongside pan-African infrastructure investor Africa50 and the International Solar Alliance. First discussed on this same GABI stage a year ago, the Fund returns from drawing board to signature, unlocking equity for local African developers who rarely get it. Nigeria is the proof of concept — the rest of the continent is next.

Moderator: Ms. Damilola Ogunbiyi, CEO and Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Sustainable Energy for All (SEforALL)

As the old energy order is deeply shaken by geopolitical chokepoints, supply insecurity, and price volatility, a new race is underway across Africa. This session asks which countries are turning disruption into advantage — building not just megawatts, but energy security, industrial capacity, and competitive edge through renewables, storage, mini-grids, and smarter grids. Few countries illustrate this better than Namibia, which has banned raw mineral exports to force local lithium and rare-earth beneficiation and is now building Africa's most advanced green hydrogen industry — anchored by the $10bn Hyphen project — to convert world-class sun and wind into industrial-scale value. From South Africa's storage revolution to Morocco's green industrial play and Kenya's race to renewables, we explore who is really moving first, where are the opportunities for African businesses and economies to grow fast, and what it will take to shift the continent from energy vulnerability to energy sovereignty at scale.

Panelists:

H.E. Lerato Dorothy Mataboge, Commissioner for Infrastructure and Energy (I&E), African Union

Moderator: Ms. Veronica Bolton Smith, CEO, The Critical Minerals Africa Group

Speakers:

• Ms. Tariye Gbadegesin, CEO, Climate Investment Funds (CIF)
• Ms. Norah Magero, Co‑founder & CEO, Drop Access

The climate crisis is here – and so are the solutions. This fireside revolves around one simple challenge: there is plenty of climate money, but almost none of it is landing as real megawatts and jobs in Africa. It's a fast-paced conversation between Tariye Gbadegesin, CEO of the Climate Investment Funds, one of the world’s largest multilateral climate funds, and ClimateWorks’ CEO Helen Mountford. They are joined by Norah Magero - the developer behind the groundbreaking VacciBox, a solar‑powered portable cold‑chain solution for vaccines and medical supplies in off‑grid communities - to look at where clean energy and just transition solutions are already working in Africa, what it will take to move serious capital behind them, and how philanthropy can unlock much larger flows of private and public finance. Together they will chart 2–3 concrete steps to turn today’s commitments into tomorrow’s pipelines, projects, and country transitions.