France is pressing for concrete economic outcomes at the Africa Forward Summit in Nairobi in the coming week, as President Emmanuel Macron looks to reset the country’s relationship with a continent where its influence has eroded sharply in recent years.
South Africa will attend the summit, though President Cyril Ramaphosa has opted out, with minister in the presidency Maropene Ramokgopa set to represent Pretoria alongside a business delegation.
The two-day event opens on Monday with a business forum designed to produce signed investment deals before the official summit on Tuesday. South African businesses billed to participate in the forum include Eskom, Aspen Pharmacare and vaccine manufacturer Biovac.
“We anticipate deals to be made, to be announced on a large scale. They [French companies] are trading but they are mostly investing, creating values in Africa in partnership with African actors. So there will be announcements of different sectors, because our companies have a strong value offer,” a senior adviser to the French presidency told Business Day before the summit.
French President Emmanuel Macron will close the forum with an aggregated announcement of economic commitments spanning sports, culture and technology.
For South Africa, the summit arrives at a moment of notably warm bilateral ties with Paris, with French ambassador to South Africa David Martinon recently publicly backing Pretoria’s right to attend the G20 summit in the US, saying South Africa is a fully fledged G20 member that should be part of all its meetings. US President Donald Trump barred South Africa from the December gathering. France has also separately denied rescinding Ramaphosa’s Group of Seven (G7) invitation under American pressure.
France built its Africa summits in the 1970s around Francophone countries and has held them there ever since. It will be the first Africa-France summit in an English-speaking African country, marking a break from a format that since 1973 alternated between France and Francophone African nations. The shift signals a strategic push into Anglophone markets at a moment when Paris has lost ground in its traditional West and Central African strongholds.
Tuesday’s summit is expected to draw about 30 African heads of state. The agenda centres on improving access to capital for investors and entrepreneurs, with the heads of the IMF, African Development Bank and World Bank all attending. There will also be sessions on peace and security financing, and afternoon roundtables covering agriculture, health, the blue economy and AI.
“We expect a good participation of African leaders, probably about 30 African heads of state,“ the adviser said.
Discussions will centre on topics including how to stimulate investments and how to improve the financing of African economies using digital banks, private banks, public banks, and national and regional African banks.
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