IN SHORT: The 13th Africa CEO Forum convenes in Kigali, Rwanda on May 14 and 15, 2026, bringing together more than 2,500 leading private and public sector decision-makers under the theme “Shaping Africa’s New Economic Priorities.” The forum is Africa’s largest annual private sector gathering and follows directly from the Africa Forward Summit in Nairobi, creating the most concentrated week of high-level African leadership convening in the continent’s 2026 calendar.
The Africa CEO Forum opens in Kigali four days after the Nairobi Africa Forward Summit closes, creating an unprecedented sequence of continental leadership convening that concentrates more strategic dialogue, deal-making and policy positioning into a single week than any previous point in Africa’s diplomatic and business calendar.
The 13th edition of the Africa CEO Forum, organised by Jeune Afrique Media Group and hosted by the Government of Rwanda, builds on 12 years of building what has become the definitive annual convening of Africa’s private sector leadership.
- The Africa CEO Forum draws a fundamentally different audience from the Africa Forward Summit. Where the Nairobi summit convenes heads of state, ministers and government officials alongside investors, Kigali will bring the CEOs, CFOs and investors who actually execute the investment decisions, capital allocations and operational partnerships that determine economic outcomes on the continent. The combination of both events in the same week means that policy signals from Nairobi on May 12 can be converted into private sector commitments in Kigali on May 14 and 15 at unprecedented speed.
- The 2026 theme, “Shaping Africa’s New Economic Priorities,” is a direct response to the convergence of forces that have restructured the African economic landscape in the first half of 2026: the Hormuz oil shock, the China zero-tariff policy, the US-Africa critical minerals competition, the Dangote IPO pipeline, the acceleration of African capital markets, and the AI governance debate that has moved from theoretical to operational across the continent’s leading digital economies.
- Rwanda’s hosting of the forum reflects the country’s positioning as Africa’s most consistent investment environment. Kigali has become the continent’s preferred venue for high-stakes business convening precisely because Rwanda’s governance stability, infrastructure quality and business environment consistency reduce the logistical and political friction that complicates events elsewhere. The Africa CEO Forum has been held in Kigali multiple times and each time reinforces the city’s brand as Africa’s institutional convening capital.
- This year’s forum will carry particular urgency around three issues. The energy transition agenda has been accelerated by the Hormuz crisis, which has demonstrated viscerally how dependent African oil-importing economies are on external supply chains that can be disrupted with geopolitical consequence. The AI governance and digital sovereignty debate that the Africa Forward Summit is expected to crystallise will require private sector follow-through that the CEO Forum is positioned to provide. And the capital markets moment, defined by the Dangote Refinery IPO, potential OPay listing and Pan African Resources global expansion, needs a forum where institutional investors and company leadership can engage at the highest level.
- The forum’s Investor Hub, which connects institutional capital with African investment opportunities through curated private meetings and project showcases, has historically generated billions of dollars in commitments across its 12 previous editions. The 2026 edition arrives at a moment when institutional interest in African assets is at a cycle high.
The Africa CEO Forum’s stated objective for 2026 is to “shape the continent’s new economic priorities and accelerate Africa’s transformation” around a private sector-led model where business drives outcomes that governments and development institutions cannot deliver alone.
The Bigger Picture: Two major summits in one week in two East African cities is not an accident. It reflects the growing density of African institutional activity and the continent’s rising confidence in its own convening power. Nairobi is no longer just hosting meetings because the UN is there. Kigali is no longer just hosting meetings because it is safe and well-organised. Both cities are convening meetings because they are genuinely relevant to the strategic decisions being made about Africa’s future. The week of May 11 to 15, 2026 is when the continent takes its seat at the global table not as a recipient of decisions made elsewhere but as an active shaper of the agenda. That is a different kind of week from any that has come before.
Source: Invest Africa / Africa CEO Forum, May 2026
