African Development Summit 2026 | UN Side Event

Full Program

Four sessions. One African development agenda.

Each session is expanded below with its purpose, key questions, and intended outcomes. Speaker names are intentionally being held until the official session lineup announcement on August 29th.

Session 1Virtual Session

The Africa We Want: Youth, Leadership, Diplomacy & African Institutions

Africa’s future will be shaped not only by ideas, but by the quality of its leadership, the strength of its institutions, and the ability of a new generation to participate meaningfully in diplomacy, governance, and public life. This virtual opening session sets the tone for the Summit by examining the leadership choices and institutional reforms required to build an Africa that is more accountable, peaceful, connected, and globally influential.

Why This Conversation Matters

The continent has a large and ambitious youth population, yet too many young Africans remain outside the rooms where policy, diplomacy, and institutional decisions are made. This session looks at how Africa can build stronger leadership pipelines, modernize public institutions, deepen civic trust, and create a more intentional relationship between governments, regional institutions, young leaders, and the diaspora.

What the Session Will Explore

How can African institutions become more responsive, trusted, and effective?
What does meaningful youth participation in governance and diplomacy look like beyond symbolic inclusion?
How can diplomacy, peacebuilding, and regional cooperation strengthen African stability and influence?
What role should the African diaspora play in leadership, policy, and institution-building?

What we want participants to leave with

Participants should leave with a clearer understanding of the leadership and institutional conditions required for long-term African development, along with practical ideas for youth inclusion, diplomacy, accountability, and cross-border cooperation.

Session 2Virtual Session

Building Africa’s Next Economy: Enterprise, Capital, Technology & Jobs

Africa’s next economic chapter must be built around productive enterprise, access to capital, technology, innovation, and jobs that create real opportunity. This virtual session moves beyond broad economic promises to focus on the systems entrepreneurs, investors, institutions, and policymakers need to build businesses that can scale, employ people, compete globally, and create durable value across African markets.

Why This Conversation Matters

African entrepreneurs often operate with extraordinary creativity while facing fragmented markets, financing gaps, infrastructure constraints, and limited pathways to scale. At the same time, digital transformation, AI, fintech, creative industries, and new investment models are opening opportunities that did not exist a decade ago. The session explores how Africa can convert innovation into productive capacity and inclusive economic growth.

What the Session Will Explore

What will it take to make African businesses more investable and scalable?
How can capital reach credible founders, SMEs, and growth-stage companies more effectively?
Where can technology and AI solve structural business and public-sector challenges?
How can entrepreneurship and industrial growth translate into quality jobs for Africa’s young population?

What we want participants to leave with

The session is designed to surface practical pathways for enterprise growth, investment readiness, technology adoption, job creation, and stronger collaboration between founders, investors, governments, and ecosystem builders.

Session 3Virtual Session

From SDGs to Real Lives: Community Development, Health, Food, Climate & Sustainable Africa

Development becomes meaningful when communities can feel it in their daily lives. This virtual session connects global and continental development goals with practical realities in health, food security, education, climate resilience, community infrastructure, and social wellbeing. The conversation centers implementation: what works, what communities need, and how locally led solutions can move from pilots and promises to measurable impact.

Why This Conversation Matters

Many development challenges are interconnected. Food insecurity affects health and education. Climate shocks affect livelihoods and migration. Weak local systems can prevent national policies from reaching the people they are intended to serve. This session asks how African communities can become active partners in development rather than passive recipients of programs designed elsewhere.

What the Session Will Explore

How can development programs move from policy commitments to measurable community outcomes?
What local solutions can strengthen food security, public health, education, and resilience?
How should African communities prepare for climate-related economic and social pressures?
How can governments, nonprofits, businesses, and local leaders coordinate without duplicating effort?

What we want participants to leave with

Participants should gain a stronger implementation lens for sustainable development, with emphasis on community ownership, measurable outcomes, local capacity, cross-sector partnerships, and solutions that can be sustained beyond short-term interventions.

Session 4In-Person Session • New York

Only Africa Can Save Africa: Leadership, Capital, Institutions & Action

The Summit culminates with a high-level in-person session in New York focused on the central question behind ACD’s work: what must Africans build, finance, reform, and lead for the continent to take greater ownership of its development future? This session brings leadership, capital, institutions, enterprise, diplomacy, and implementation into one room with an explicit focus on action.

Why This Conversation Matters

Africa’s development cannot depend indefinitely on external priorities, fragmented interventions, or short-term initiatives. Sustainable progress requires strong African leadership, credible institutions, domestic and diaspora capital, productive enterprise, and partnerships that reinforce African ownership rather than replace it. This session is structured to challenge participants to move from diagnosis to commitment.

What the Session Will Explore

What must African leaders and institutions own directly if development is to become more sustainable?
How can African and diaspora capital be mobilized toward productive, long-term development?
What should effective international partnership look like when African ownership is the starting point?
How can Summit conversations translate into partnerships, commitments, follow-through, and implementation?

What we want participants to leave with

The in-person session is intended to close the Summit with practical priorities, new relationships, and a stronger action agenda connecting leadership, capital, institutions, enterprise, diaspora engagement, and implementation.

Get ready for the African Development Summit 2026.

From conversation to African action.

A focused summit built for people who want more than speeches.

Four sessions. One African development agenda.

The Africa We Want: Youth, Leadership, Diplomacy & African Institutions

Building Africa’s Next Economy: Enterprise, Capital, Technology & Jobs

From SDGs to Real Lives: Community Development, Health, Food, Climate & Sustainable Africa

Only Africa Can Save Africa: Leadership, Capital, Institutions & Action

Ready to join the African Development Summit 2026?

Register for the Summit.

Before you register.

Which sessions are virtual?

When will the speakers be announced?

Do I register once?

How is the event presented?