An annual two-day pan-African private-sector summit run by Jeune Afrique Media Group with the International Finance Corporation, moving to Abidjan for 3 and 4 May 2027 after its May 2026 edition drew 2,800 CEOs, heads of state and investors to Kigali; the 2027 venue and theme are not yet announced.
Africa CEO Forum, also referenced as ACF or ACEF, is an annual two-day summit that convenes African and international CEOs, investors, development-finance leaders, government ministers and heads of state around a single continental business theme. Jeune Afrique Media Group founded and owns the event; the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the World Bank Group's private-sector arm, has co-hosted it every year since inception. It runs in English and French. The forum has been held since 2012 and moves annually between host cities, most recently Kigali, Rwanda (2026) and Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire, its confirmed 2027 host.
3 and 4 May 2027, in Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire. The specific venue has not been announced as of 3 September 2026: the organiser's save-the-date material states only the city and dates, with "more details to be announced soon." The three previous Abidjan editions (2016, 2018, 2025) were all held at the Sofitel Abidjan Hotel Ivoire, but the organiser has not confirmed this venue for 2027. The most recent edition, in Kigali, Rwanda, ran 14 to 15 May 2026 at the Kigali Convention Centre.
Jeune Afrique Media Group (JAMG), the Paris-based pan-African media group that publishes the weekly Jeune Afrique and The Africa Report, founded and owns the Africa CEO Forum. The International Finance Corporation (IFC), the World Bank Group's private-sector arm, is the permanent co-host, named on official materials alongside JAMG for every edition since 2012. Each edition also carries a host-country partner: the Rwanda Development Board for the 2026 Kigali edition. A host-country partner for the 2027 Abidjan edition has not yet been named. Registration enquiries go to register@theafricaceoforum.com, sponsorship enquiries to partners@theafricaceoforum.com, press enquiries to press@theafricaceoforum.com.
2,800 (organiser figure). That is the organiser's own count of CEOs, heads of state, ministers and business leaders at the May 2026 Kigali edition; independent press accounts of the same two days put the figure noticeably lower, around 2,000. The organiser's own audience description spans African and international CEOs and managing directors, institutional investors and development-finance institutions, heads of state and senior government ministers, bankers and fund managers active in African markets, and multilateral organisations. Six heads of state attended the 2026 opening sessions, including the presidents of Rwanda, Nigeria, Gabon, Mauritania, Mozambique and Guinea, plus Kenya's president. No attendance projection for the 2027 Abidjan edition has been published.
Not yet published as of 3 September 2026: the organiser's 2027 edition page had not gone live at the time of research, only the save-the-date announcement. For reference, the official speakers page for the May 2026 Kigali edition listed several hundred confirmed names, opening with Amir Ben Yahmed (CEO, Jeune Afrique Media Group), H.E. Robert Beugre Mambe (Prime Minister, Cote d'Ivoire), Makhtar Diop (Managing Director, IFC) and H.E. Paul Kagame (President, Rwanda); the page does not state a headline total and is not reproduced here in full given its length. Confirmed 2026 headline names, cross-checked against the official 2026 edition page and published programme, plus Patrick Pouyanne, carried from the project's own research record as a 2026 attendee but not independently re-found in the official pages reviewed here:
Several hundred further names, mostly session moderators, ministers and company executives, sit on the official page without a stated headline count and are not reproduced here.
The host country changes: Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire, replaces Kigali, Rwanda, which hosted 2026 and 2024. The dates move from mid-May (14 to 15 May in 2026) to 3 and 4 May in 2027, a two-week shift earlier in the month. No 2027 theme, venue, speakers or partners have been announced as of 3 September 2026; the organiser's own material says only that "more information will be shared soon."
No 2027 theme or session list has been published as of 3 September 2026. For reference, the May 2026 Kigali edition ran under the theme "The Scale Imperative: Why Africa Must Embrace Shared Ownership," organised around scale, shared ownership and the African private sector, with sessions returning to a recurring set of cross-edition themes: investment, public-private partnership, infrastructure and sustainable development. The format itself followed a recurring pattern: an opening ceremony and address, a themed opening panel, several parallel "Invest in [country]" tracks (Cote d'Ivoire, Rwanda, Morocco were run in 2026), sector panels spanning energy, mining, logistics, healthcare, agriculture, telecoms and finance, invitation-only strategic roundtables and executive dialogues, one-to-one on-stage conversations with heads of state and ministers, a presidential panel, and evening receptions tied to specific initiatives (the Disrupters Club, the Ubuntu Tribe). The Africa CEO Forum Awards gala dinner closes the summit. Each edition is built around a single continental business theme rather than a fixed year-round track structure.
Plenary keynotes and a presidential panel, moderated sector panels, "Invest in [country]" showcase sessions built around a national delegation, invitation-only strategic roundtables and executive dialogues restricted to industry and, for some sessions, media, shorter on-stage conversations and interviews, and evening receptions and dinners tied to specific initiatives. It is not an exhibition-floor event: there is no described stand or booth format for general attendees, distinct from a trade-fair-style conference.
The Africa CEO Forum Awards, a gala dinner ceremony on the first evening with six categories (CEO of the Year, Pan-African Champion, Disrupter of the Year, Family Business, Gender Leader, Local Impact Champion), judged by a multi-disciplinary jury; shortlisted companies are notified about a month ahead and commit to sending an executive to the ceremony. The Disrupters Club, which brings roughly 20 African startups into the summit and runs its own reception. Women Working For Change and a Family Business initiative, both described by the organiser as year-round programmes to raise the number of women in executive roles and support governance in African family businesses, without further public detail found. The Africa CEO Network, a separate paid year-round membership platform and relationship-management service with quarterly events in Abidjan, Kinshasa, Lagos, Nairobi, Casablanca, Paris and London, distinct from the Annual Summit itself. A "LEAD" programme is listed in the organiser's site navigation without a public description found during research.
Not publicly listed on the official site: pricing is not disclosed on theafricaceoforum.com, and registration routes through the organiser's portal (app.theafricaceoforum.com) after contact via register@theafricaceoforum.com. One third-party delegation broker (Dawia, unaffiliated with the organiser) advertises a 2026 registration fee of EUR 3,290 excluding VAT and describes eligibility as reserved for CEOs, managing directors and executive-committee members of companies with annual turnover above EUR 20 million (EUR 50 million for international companies); this figure and the eligibility threshold are not confirmed by the organiser and should be treated as indicative, not authoritative. No 2027 pricing has been published.
No public call for speakers or open submission process was found. The roster is curated by the organiser, built around confirmed heads of state, ministers, CEOs and institutional leaders; the practical-information and press pages provide no route for an unsolicited speaking pitch. Whether an informal approach to the programme team is possible is not publicly disclosed.
No public sponsorship application form was found; enquiries route to partners@theafricaceoforum.com. The 2026 edition named a wide tier structure, from Founder and Co-Host down to Media Partner (full list in the entry below), but the criteria or process for joining a given tier are not documented publicly. The Disrupters Club, aimed at startups rather than corporate sponsors, is a separate curated selection rather than a paid tier.
Not yet announced as of 3 September 2026. For reference, the full tiered partner roster published for the May 2026 Kigali edition:
The database record also holds ten broader theme tags (scale imperative, shared ownership, African private sector, investment, public-private partnership, infrastructure, sustainable development) drawn from the 2026 theme rather than a sponsor roster; they are covered under the programme entry above.
Read from the 2026 sponsor and speaker rosters rather than a published breakdown. Energy, mining and resources: TotalEnergies, ACWA Power, ENI, Eskom-adjacent power groups and NNPC among the sponsors, plus multiple energy ministers on stage. Logistics, ports and shipping: Maersk, MSC, DP World, APM Terminals, CMA CGM, Djibouti Port, Tanger Med. Banking and financial services: Ecobank, Equity Bank, Bank of Kigali, Standard Chartered, Bank of America, plus development-finance institutions (IFC, AfDB, BADEA, BOAD, EBRD, Proparco, British International Investment). Telecoms and technology: Orange, MTN, Huawei, Cassava Technologies, Visa, Spiro. Government investment-promotion agencies form their own "Invest In" tier (Angola, Gabon, South Africa, Cote d'Ivoire, Benin, Rwanda). Consulting and knowledge partners (BCG, McKinsey and Company, PwC, S&P Global, GSMA) sponsor rather than exhibit. Early-stage African startups appear through the separate, smaller Disrupters Club cohort rather than as sponsors. No percentage breakdown by sector is published by the organiser.
Applications route through the "Get your Accreditation" link on the organiser's press centre (theafricaceoforum.com/en/press/) or by contacting press@theafricaceoforum.com; the page does not publish detailed eligibility criteria or a deadline. Accredited press reportedly receive access to press conferences, one-to-one interviews and a dedicated broadcast studio. The press centre's general description cites, without attributing the figure to a specific year, more than 1,800 business leaders and 145 journalists from over 70 countries as a recurring scale for the event; treat this as evergreen organiser copy rather than a confirmed count for any single edition.
Three identifiable strands. In-house and partner coverage: Jeune Afrique and The Africa Report (Jeune Afrique Media Group) reported directly on the 2026 Kigali sessions; the founder's own media are not independent coverage of an event it owns. Syndicated wire-style and regional reporting reproducing organiser framing and figures: allAfrica, KT Press (Rwanda), Agaciro Press and The Nigerian Voice on the 2026 edition; Abidjan.net and Daily News Egypt on the 2025 Abidjan edition. Institutional context rather than reporting: an IFC pressroom release on the 2022 Abidjan dates and a World Bank staff-travel brief referencing the 2025 edition. No major international outlet's own newsroom coverage, independent of the partner list below, was found during research.
Four tiers, not one undifferentiated pile of "press." Owned, not independent: Jeune Afrique and The Africa Report (media partner) are both properties of the founder, Jeune Afrique Media Group, so their coverage of an event their own parent company owns and runs cannot be read as independent reporting. Placed as partners: BBC (media partner), Bloomberg (media partner), CNN (media partner), CNBC (media partner), Al Arabiya English (media partner), Arise News (media partner), CGTN (media partner), Canal+ (media partner), TV5 Monde (media partner), Nation Media Group (media partner) and Enterprise AM (media partner) all sit on the official 2026 media-partner list, so any coverage from these names is arranged access, not an independent editorial choice, even where the resulting article reads as ordinary reporting. Regional and syndicated, not obviously partnered: allAfrica, KT Press, Agaciro Press, The Nigerian Voice, Abidjan.net and Daily News Egypt covered the 2025 and 2026 editions and do not appear on the published partner list, but their pieces largely restate organiser figures and framing rather than independently reported detail. Institutional, not press: the IFC pressroom and World Bank materials are the co-host's own institutional communications. Net read: no coverage found during research is both independent of the organiser or its partner list and substantively reported beyond the organiser's own figures and framing.
Founders and mid-level managers without C-suite decision authority: the event's own audience description and the third-party pricing eligibility criteria both point to a senior-executive and investor audience, not an open business-networking crowd. Companies seeking a trade-show exhibition floor or product demonstration space: the format is plenary, panel and roundtable, not stand-based. Specialists wanting deep, sector-specific technical content: the single continental theme structure (2026: shared ownership and scale) means most sessions address a cross-sector business and policy question rather than a narrow vertical; a sector-specific event such as the Africa Energy Forum is a closer fit for energy-only technical audiences. Anyone whose interest is a live product or investment pitch to a general venture-capital audience: apart from the small, separately curated Disrupters Club cohort, there is no described open pitch format.
Africa CEO Forum is the largest annual pan-sector, pan-African private-sector summit, distinct from sector-specific African gatherings such as the Africa Energy Forum (energy and power) or GITEX Africa (technology), and distinct from intergovernmental forums such as the African Union Summit, where governments rather than the private sector set the agenda. Wikipedia describes it as sometimes labelled the "Davos of Africa," a media shorthand rather than the organiser's own description, reflecting its mix of heads of state, global CEOs and development-finance leaders on one stage. It runs each spring, typically March to June depending on the edition, and has become a fixture that African and international investors use as an annual read on the continent's private-sector agenda, alongside sector deep-dives held at other times of year.
Yes. Abidjan is a frequent but not exclusive host: the forum launched in Geneva (2012, 2014, 2015, 2017) before moving permanently to African cities from 2016. Since then it has rotated mainly between Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire (2016, 2018, 2022, 2023, 2025, and confirmed for 2027) and Kigali, Rwanda (2019, 2024, 2026). The organiser's own "previous editions" pages are incomplete and do not reconcile cleanly into a single numbered sequence; this history is compiled from the organiser's partial listings, IFC's press releases and contemporaneous news coverage of each edition, not from one authoritative organiser table. The 2020 edition did not proceed as an in-person event and 2022 press material describes that year's edition as the first in-person edition since 2019, indicating a pandemic-era gap; the exact 2020 to 2021 status is not documented in the sources checked.
English and French, per the organiser's bilingual official website (both languages selectable on every page checked). Simultaneous interpretation between the two languages is standard for a pan-African, Francophone-and-Anglophone audience, though a dedicated statement confirming on-site interpretation for the 2027 edition was not found.
Not confirmed by the organiser: no livestream, on-demand replay or virtual-pass option is described on the official site's practical-information or registration pages checked. One third-party delegation broker (Dawia) advertises "virtual access options" as part of its own paid delegation package, but this is that broker's own service, not a confirmed feature of the Africa CEO Forum's official registration. The organiser does list "Digital Events" as a separate, ongoing programme in its site navigation, distinct from the in-person Annual Summit, without further public detail found during research.
Not publicly disclosed. No cancellation or refund policy was found on the official practical-information, registration or terms pages checked during research.
Not publicly disclosed. No accessibility statement was found on the official practical-information page or elsewhere on the site during research.
The 2027 venue has not been announced, so venue-specific directions cannot be given. Abidjan is served by Felix-Houphouet-Boigny International Airport, which the organiser's general practical-information page describes as connected to more than 130 international destinations via more than 14 airlines. The three most recent Abidjan editions (2016, 2018, 2025) were held at the Sofitel Abidjan Hotel Ivoire, on Boulevard Hassan II, with hotel shuttle and taxi service from the airport and room blocks reserved at major Abidjan hotels for past editions; none of this is confirmed as the 2027 arrangement. Visa requirements historically published by the organiser note that nationals of a list of West African and island nations travel visa-free, while other visitors require a visa, with e-visa applications available through Cote d'Ivoire's official portal; processing guidance has previously recommended applying at least four weeks ahead.
Read the move as continuation of an established rotation, not a signal about Rwanda. Abidjan has hosted more editions than any other city since the forum left Geneva (2016, 2018, 2022, 2023, 2025, and now 2027), reflecting Cote d'Ivoire's role as a recurring anchor host alongside Kigali's more recent, smaller run (2019, 2024, 2026). Nothing in the sourced material points to a change in the IFC or JAMG partnership; only the host city and host-country partner change year to year.
The presidential panel format, used again in 2026 with the presidents of Rwanda and Gabon on stage, is the forum's clearest point of differentiation from a conventional trade conference: it signals that African governments treat the event as a venue to court investors directly, not merely to attend. Six heads of state attending the 2026 opening, alongside a Rwanda Development Board host-country partnership, reads as evidence that governments compete for the platform the forum offers, which in turn is what draws the CEO and investor audience the organiser sells to sponsors.
The organiser's own figure for 2026 is self-reported, and independent press accounts of the same two days range noticeably lower on the same event. Attendance and country-count figures are exactly the kind of number an event that sells sponsorship tiers and a curated registration fee has an incentive to round up. The partner roster, which names specific companies rather than a headline count, is the harder signal to check independently.
Official site: theafricaceoforum.com. Press centre: theafricaceoforum.com/en/press/. Registration and delegate portal: app.theafricaceoforum.com. LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/africa-ceo-forum. X: @africaceoforum_acf. Hashtag: #AfricaCEOForum. Registration: register@theafricaceoforum.com. Sponsorship: partners@theafricaceoforum.com. Press: press@theafricaceoforum.com. IFC's own summary of the partnership: ifc.org/en/where-we-work/africa/the-africa-ceo-forum. As of 3 September 2026 no dedicated forum-2027 edition page was found live; the save-the-date announcement was published via the organiser's X account.