In Nairobi, the Africa Forward Summit signals a shift toward a new Franco-African development finance doctrine
Published on 18/05/2026.
Co-hosted by France and Kenya on 11-12 May 2026, the Africa Forward Summit marked an attempt to redefine relations between France and the African continent around a new narrative: one centered on equal partnership, private investment, and strategic autonomy. Behind the €23 billion in announced commitments, the summit also reflects a deeper transformation: the explicit move away from traditional Official Development Assistance toward approaches increasingly focused on investment, guarantees, and private sector mobilization. This new orientation raises both expectations and questions regarding the true nature of the financing announced and its ability to address the continent’s social and health needs. Analysis.
Held in Nairobi, the Africa Forward Summit brought together nearly 30 African heads of state and government, alongside major French and African companies including TotalEnergies, CMA CGM, Orange, EDF, Canal+, Sanofi, Schneider Electric, Nutriset, and Eiffage, as well as international financial institutions, entrepreneurs, and civil society representatives.
Presented as a “new generation” summit, Africa Forward sought to move beyond traditional development aid approaches in favor of a model based on co-investment, private sector mobilization, innovation, and strategic autonomy.
This shift was summed up unambiguously by Emmanuel Macron during his opening speech:
“What we want to do is not provide aid. That mindset belongs to the past.”
The French president advocated for a new development financing model centered on investments, guarantees, and de-risking mechanisms rather than traditional aid.
€23 billion announced: what do these figures actually represent?
The summit resulted in €23 billion in announced commitments across health, agriculture, digital, infrastructure, energy, and finance.
However, these figures aggregate very different types of financial instruments, including:
- private investments;
- loans;
- guarantees;
- grants;
- blended finance mechanisms;
- public-private partnerships;
- investment intentions and future projects.
As the organizers themselves emphasized, these financial flows go far beyond the traditional scope of Official Development Assistance.
Of the €23 billion announced, €14 billion come from French companies and French public development actors, including AFD, Proparco, and the French Treasury, while €9 billion were announced by African companies and investors.
These commitments will be monitored through a newly created platform, the “Coalition Impact Afrique-France”, tasked with centralizing and tracking implementation.
While the summit claims to embody a paradigm shift, several questions remain unanswered: how much of these announcements represent genuinely new financing? How much corresponds to already planned investments or non-binding private commitments? And most importantly, to what extent will these mechanisms support less profitable but essential sectors such as primary healthcare systems or poverty reduction?
Health at the center of the announcements
Health emerged as one of the summit’s key priorities, with €942 million in announced investments dedicated to hospital infrastructure, pharmaceutical sovereignty, and vaccine production.
Among the flagship projects announced:
- a €600 million pan-African healthcare infrastructure programme led by Ellipse Projects in Kenya, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and the Central African Republic;
- a €222 million hospital programme in Guinea led by Eiffage and APHP International;
- a chikungunya vaccine technology transfer initiative between the Institut Pasteur de Paris and the Institut Pasteur de Dakar;
- a technology transfer coordinated by Unitaid to facilitate the production of lenacapavir in South Africa;
- a Sanofi-supported initiative to locally manufacture hexavalent vaccines in South Africa.
Beyond infrastructure, the summit strongly emphasized the concepts of health sovereignty and regional pharmaceutical production, now presented as central pillars of the Africa-Europe partnership.
AFD and Proparco also announced several initiatives aimed at strengthening pharmaceutical manufacturing capacities in East Africa and supporting the industrialization of the health sector.
Nutrition, agriculture, and food security
Agriculture and food systems also featured prominently among the summit’s announcements.
French company Nutriset announced the expansion of its activities in Nigeria, Ethiopia, and Burkina Faso to combat malnutrition through locally sourced supply chains and nutrient-rich crops.
AFD and IFAD also launched a dairy sector transformation programme in Tanzania aimed at improving food security and farmers’ incomes, while the FARM+ and FASA initiatives seek to support African agricultural SMEs and strengthen food systems resilience.
Toward a new development finance architecture?
The summit also highlighted several initiatives aimed at reforming development finance and mobilizing greater volumes of private capital across Africa.
France notably announced that it would join the capital of ATIDI, a pan-African institution specialized in investment and trade guarantees and insurance, in order to expand de-risking mechanisms capable of attracting more private investment to the continent.
Emmanuel Macron also called for a broader reform of the international financial architecture, including stronger mobilization of the IMF and the World Bank, as well as the reallocation of Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) toward African economies.
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