Unstoppable
Africa 2026

The forum opens with framing remarks from the two anchors guiding both days of the programme.

SpeakersFolly Bah Thibault, Senior News Anchor, Al Jazeera Media Network; Larry Madowo, International Correspondent, CNN

Africa supplies 69 percent of the world's cobalt and 76 percent of its manganese, yet refines under 5 percent of the critical minerals it produces. The panel turns to mechanics: renegotiating extractive contracts, insisting on regional processing, and tying off-take agreements to shared infrastructure.

Scene setterAfrican Heads of State

PanellistsNolitha Fakude, Chairperson, Anglo American South Africa; Eddy Kioni, Chief Executive, BUENASSA, Democratic Republic of the Congo; Tidjane Thiam, General Partner, Allied Critical Minerals Fund; Stella Li, Executive Vice President, BYD Company Limited

The two-time NBA All-Star has personally funded South Sudan's national basketball programme for four years, building courts, an academy, and a pathway to Paris 2024 in a country with no indoor arena. With five of Africa's 54 nations holding competition-ready arenas, he argues sport infrastructure is an investable frontier.

SpeakerLuol Deng, President, South Sudan Basketball Federation

SpeakersSanda Ojiambo, Assistant Secretary-General and Chief Executive, United Nations Global Compact; H.E. Mahmoud Ali Youssouf, Chairperson, African Union Commission; H.E. António Guterres, Secretary-General, United Nations

Heads of state and chief executives address which leadership choices will shape the next decade of global prosperity: how the African Continental Free Trade Area can scale success stories into continental value chains, and how innovative financing can de-risk and crowd in private capital.

PanellistsHeads of State; Samaila Zubairu, President and Chief Executive, Africa Finance Corporation; Mandy DeFilippo, Chief Executive of Americas, Europe, Middle East and Africa, Standard Chartered

The continent is building its own financing systems rather than asking for fairer terms. African-led facilities, among them the African Development Bank's New African Financial Architecture and the Alliance of African Multilateral Financial Institutions, are beginning to determine how capital moves and what it costs.

PanellistsNonkululeko Nyembezi, Chairperson, Standard Bank Group; Stephanie von Friedeburg, Managing Director, Public Sector Banking, Citi

ModeratorAcha Leke, Chairman, Africa, McKinsey & Company

A rapid-fire session on how the United States is approaching Africa's critical minerals, trade corridors, and path to peace, and how peace and stability efforts are being designed as platforms for long-term investment and partnership.

SpeakerMassad Boulos, Senior Advisor to the President of the United States on Arab and African Affairs

The African Continental Free Trade Area was never intended as a government-only project, yet firms are not yet shaping the rules that tilt terms of trade in Africa's favour. Chief executives bring field-level pain points, from rules of origin to trade finance, and map them to the instruments that must change.

PanellistsPhuthi Mahanyele-Dabengwa, Chief Executive and Executive Director, Naspers; Group Executive Director, Prosus; H.E. Francisca Tatchouop Belobe, Commissioner for Economic Development, Trade, Tourism, Industry and Minerals, African Union Commission

The session marks the first close of the Decentralised Renewable Energy Fund, the first time an African sovereign wealth fund, the Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority, co-leads a renewables vehicle alongside Africa50 and the International Solar Alliance, unlocking equity for local developers.

ModeratorDamilola Ogunbiyi, Chief Executive and Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Sustainable Energy for All

As the old energy order is shaken by chokepoints and price volatility, the session asks which countries are turning disruption into advantage. Namibia banned raw mineral exports to force local beneficiation and is building the continent's most advanced green hydrogen industry, anchored by the $10 billion Hyphen project.

PanellistsH.E. Lerato Dorothy Mataboge, Commissioner for Infrastructure and Energy, African Union

ModeratorVeronica Bolton Smith, Chief Executive, The Critical Minerals Africa Group

There is substantial climate finance, but little of it lands as megawatts and jobs in Africa. The fireside examines where clean energy solutions already work, and how philanthropy can unlock larger public and private flows.

SpeakersTariye Gbadegesin, Chief Executive, Climate Investment Funds; Norah Magero, Co-founder and Chief Executive, Drop Access

SpeakersFolly Bah Thibault, Senior News Anchor, Al Jazeera Media Network; Larry Madowo, International Correspondent, CNN

In a northern Kenya classroom of 300 deaf students with one interpreter, Elly Savatia found the problem worth building a company around. Now 25, he demonstrates Terp 360 live, turning speech into three-dimensional sign-language avatars, before launching two-way translation and expansion into Rwanda, Uganda, and South Africa.

SpeakerElly Savatia, Founder and Chief Executive, Signvrse

Artificial intelligence is promoted as transformative for Africa, yet in most countries it is used at a fraction of its potential. The panel asks who owns and scales it, examining African data as a strategic asset and what sovereign AI means in practice, so value is recorded on African balance sheets.

PanellistsH.E. Paula Ingabire, Minister of ICT and Innovation, Rwanda; Dr. David Moinina Sengeh, Chief Minister and Chief Innovation Officer, Sierra Leone; Olugbenga Agboola, Chief Executive, Flutterwave; Lisa Monaco, President, Global Affairs, Microsoft

ModeratorAmb. Philip Thigo, Special Envoy on Technology, Executive Office of the President of Kenya

SABII is formally introduced as South Africa's national anchor of the Global Africa Business Initiative. Its architects join investors, policymakers, and UN leaders around four pillars: digitisation, energy transition, climate-smart agriculture, and human capital.

The African Business Leaders Coalition returns intra-African trade to the main stage. Anchored in the $3.4 trillion AfCFTA opportunity, this chief executive led session surfaces where private sector leadership moves fastest, from rules of origin to trade finance.

With Showmax shutting down in Africa and Amazon Prime Video stepping back from African originals, the era of foreign platforms supplying production funding has closed. What replaces it is Africa-focused capital: Afreximbank's $1 billion Africa Film Fund and the Next Narrative Africa Fund.

PanellistsCameron Bailey, Chief Executive, Toronto International Film Festival; Akunna Cook, Founder and Chief Executive, Next Narrative Africa Fund; Wanuri Kahiu, Film Director, Producer and Co-founder, AFROBUBBLEGUM; Lavaille Lavette, Chief Executive, Pan-African Film Fund

ModeratorJosh Wilson, Managing Director, TIME Africa; Founder and Managing Director, Global Venture Partners

Ultra-fast fashion promises inexpensive clothing, and the cost is paid in African jobs, landfill, and lost cultural capital. The session examines how craft and community become the foundation of a circular fashion economy, and how policy and investment can back it at scale.

PanellistsOmoyemi Akerele, Founder and Chief Executive, Lagos Fashion Week and Style House Files; Temwa Gondwe, Director of Creatives and Diaspora, Afreximbank; Kenneth Ize, Founder and Creative Director, Kenneth Ize; Amira Rasool, Founder and Chief Executive, The Folklore

A head of state, a head of government, and the United Nations' senior adviser on Africa discuss what moves Global Africa forward: how risk is assessed and capital flows, alongside trust deficits between governments, businesses, and diaspora capital.

Africa scouts its best players young, exports them early, and loses them to opaque deals before their value is captured. The panel moves to mechanics: contracts that protect minors, AI-driven scouting, and welfare-first academies wired into AfCFTA markets.

PanellistsClare Akamanzi, Chief Executive, NBA Africa; Herbert Mensah, President, Rugby Africa; Simon Tiemtoré, Chairman and Chief Executive, Lilium Capital Group; Chairman, Vista Bank Group; Kingsley Pungong, Executive Chairman, Rainbow World Group

ModeratorChiney Ogwumike, WNBA All-Star, ESPN Analyst and Founder, Queens of the Continent Foundation

SpeakerSanda Ojiambo, Assistant Secretary-General, Chief Executive and Executive Director, United Nations Global Compact

As Unstoppable Africa marks its fifth year, the Diamond Session brings together speakers who have defined the forum across business, sport, culture, and diplomacy, crystallising five years of lessons into a line of sight for the next five.