Kigali, Rwanda
The 2026 Africa CEO Forum opened in Kigali on Thursday, May 14, bringing together thousands of business leaders, investors, heads of state and policymakers to press an urgent case for continental scale and shared ownership as a path to faster economic transformation.
Under the theme “Scale or Fail: Why Africa Must Embrace Shared Ownership,” the two-day summit at the Kigali Convention Centre foregrounds discussions on cross-border equity, regional infrastructure and regulatory harmonisation designed to help African firms grow into competitive multinational companies.
Organisers describe the forum as one of the continent’s largest private-sector gatherings, with participants from dozens of countries, including hundreds of chief executives and representatives of more than a thousand companies.
The event’s high-level attendance — including several heads of state and senior government ministers — underscores the forum’s political weight in shaping public–private cooperation on industrialisation and investment facilitation. The programme mixes executive dialogues, sector panels and deal-making sessions that focus on shared capital models, cross-border investment and the infrastructure needed to unlock regional markets.
Rwanda’s public and private agencies worked with organisers in the run-up to the event to ensure local firms can capitalise on networking and deal opportunities, including targeted registration arrangements for domestic companies. Kigali, which has hosted previous editions, is positioning itself as a recurring hub for continental business diplomacy and investment promotion.
Measures to watch during the forum include any concrete cross-border investment commitments or new shared-ownership vehicles, and policy proposals intended to ease the flow of capital, goods and services across African markets. Organisers and participants say such outcomes would be critical to translating the forum’s theme into tangible economic scale.
