African leaders from government, business, civil society, and key institutions—alongside international partners—convened at the Mo Ibrahim Foundation’s annual event to confront the continent’s pressing challenges, realign leadership priorities, and chart a bold, actionable course to accelerate Africa’s development.
Held under the patronage of His Majesty King Mohammed VI, and amid global uncertainty and converging crises, the event underscored an overwhelming consensus: Africa’s leaders and its people must secure ownership of the continent’s own agenda. This includes a clear-eyed acknowledgement of the shortcomings in delivering on the vision of Agenda 2063—and a renewed commitment to unlocking Africa’s vast, untapped potential.
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In his opening message, His Majesty King Mohammed VI said: “Our continent is suffering from the knock-on effects of multidimensional crises […]. However, these momentary challenges should, in no way, dampen our common determination to move forward.”
In energising conversations, participants at all levels united behind three key principles that should underpin the bold and decisive action that Africa now needs to unlock growth.
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Redefining international partnerships on Africa’s own terms
The event took place against a backdrop of rapid changes, including brutal drops in Official Development Assistance (ODA). However, while notable, this shift is not unprecedented. As outlined in the Foundation’s 2025 Facts & Figures, it only marks an acceleration of a long-standing trend of declining donor commitments, with Africa’s share of ODA declining by 11 percentage points between 2013 and 2023.
As Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Director-General of the World Trade Organization highlighted: “The viability of ODA development as the driver of African development was on the wane long before this year”.
Rather than a setback, this moment was framed as a strategic opportunity to redefine the relationship between Africa and historic donors, towards mutually beneficial partnerships that revolve around investments not generosity, enabling the continent to retain ownership of and fully benefit from the potential of its significant domestic resources.
Speaking from the stage in an honest one-to-one with Mo Ibrahim, UK Foreign Secretary, David Lammy said:
“This is not just about development, it’s about a profound question of what is development. Development is about growth. It is about jobs, opportunities, and business.”
High-level participants were called on to use upcoming international forums, such as the Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development taking place in Sevilla (30 June-3 July) to clearly articulate Africa’s voice and reframe discussions with
international partners.
Accelerating the implementation of existing domestic solutions to deliver ‘The Africa We Want’
Discussions made clear that while the vision of ‘The Africa We Want’, as set out in the African Union’s Agenda 2063 over a decade ago, has not changed, the urgency and approach to its implementation needed to shift.
Data highlighted by the Foundation showed that the $330bn needed annually to finance the Agenda 2063 Second Ten-Year Implementation Plan (2024-2033), is significantly less than the value of various untapped and underleveraged resources available on the continent.
Experts and leaders discussed practical steps to leverage this potential and take ownership of these resources to deliver The Africa We Want, including:
- Stem the Illicit financial flows leaving the continent, still estimated at around $90 billion, half of which linked to extractive commodities, mostly gold
- Strengthen the domestic tax systems, in order to raise the current continental tax-to-GDP ratio of 15%, still half than OECD’s average, and even lower than 15% for 19 countries at least
- Take steps to ensure African pension funds, valued at around $220bn, as well as African sovereign funds, estimated at around $130 billion, and African remittances, representing annually around $90 billion, are invested on the continent
- Establish local value chains that enable Africa to benefit from owning between 5% and 78% of the world’s critical mineral reserves, key to the green global economy
- Adequately monetize Africa’s carbon sinking capacities, biodiversity assets, blue and agricultural potential
- Accelerate the implementation of the AfCFTA Agreement to boost intra-Africa FDI, currently still at 14% only of total FDI in Africa, and increase Africa’s economy to an expected $29 trillion by 2050.
Peace, security, justice and governance as key prerequisites for growth
The concerning impact that current crises and governance shortcomings have on Africa’s development agenda was unanimously outlined. All result in dramatic human and material loses, affecting critical sectors from healthcare to infrastructure, while increasing
risk perception and deterring investment.
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World Health Organization, said: “Peace is a prerequisite for health. Peace is a prerequisite for development. Peace is the best medicine. Peace is the pre-requisite for the Africa we all want: a healthier,
safer, fairer Africa.”
Participants noted that as long as conflicts raged across Africa, growth would continue to be stymied, calling for concerted efforts to establish peace and strengthen governance. There were particularly robust calls for action regarding the situation in Sudan
as well as Niger where leaders joined Mo Ibrahim in calling for the immediate release of President Bazoum.
Mo Ibrahim said: “The decline of aid should not be seen as some sort of cliff-edge moment for Africa. It was never going to be enough to finance Africa’s development — and our huge continent’s place in the new global economy should never be determined by the
generosity of international partners. But without peace, security, justice, and governance, we cannot move forward. Now it is for us to take responsibility and put in place the fundamentals we need.”
These discussions were underpinned by the Foundation’s latest research, the 2025
Facts & Figures, while the full Forum Report will be released next month with the inclusion of key take-aways from the IGW discussions, as well as additional external contributions.
All the sessions from the Ibrahim Forum and can be accessed below:
Opening keynote: Dr Ngozi Okonio-Iweala, Director-General, World Trade Organisation
Session 1 – Delivering The Africa We Want: amplifying Africa’s priorities
Mo In Conversation with… H.E. Moussa Faki Mahamat, former Chairperson, African Union Commission
Session 2 – Africa’s
domestic resources and assets: maximising revenue from within
Session 3 – Smarter money: making global finance work for Africa
Session 4 – Africa’sinvestment pitch: attracting private capital
Mo In conversation with… H.E. David Lammy, Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, UK
Throughout the IGW there was also a full schedule of parallel events organised by the Foundation’s partners. These events allowed for a wide-ranging set of solutions-led discussions on the challenges and opportunities in Africa. This included dialogues on the future of international tax cooperation as a means of bridging SDG financing gaps; unlocking private capital for a just energy transition in Africa; and the factors driving Africa’s risk premium and how to tackle them.
You can also access important documents, imagery and video content from the IGW
here.
Key contributions
H.E. Amina J. Mohammed, Deputy Secretary-General, United Nations: “Africa’s economic transformation will not be a gift from outside; it will be kindled from within. By unlocking intra-African trade. By adding value domestically and investing meaningfully
in Africa’s greatest resource – its people.”
H.E. Josep Borrell, former High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, European Union: “Europeans should understand that Africa is not a reservoir of human beings. Africa is the future of society and we have to fight for that future.”
H.E. Moussa Faki Mahamat, former Chairperson, African Union Commission “We need to take matters into our own hands, whether its peace and security, the model of democracy, or the management of the state. All of that needs to be devised by ourselves.’”
H.E. Nadia Fettah Alaoui, Minister of Economy and Finance, Kingdom of Morocco: “We need cheap money, concession money but not overpriced and expensive receipts.”
Samaila Zubairu, President & CEO, African Finance Corporation: “Africa is a good frontier. But that good frontier needs to be proved … We have to move from talking about the potential to the actual opportunity.”
Tarik Senhaji, CEO, Casablanca Stock Exchange: “We don’t need more aid, we have to take care of ourselves, Africans should be writing their own cheques, and for that we have to have sovereign capital markets.”
Yvonne Ike, Managing Director and Head of Sub-Saharan Africa, Bank of America: We have really big numbers and there are opportunities. but to be more action orientated about how provide solutions we have to think hard about where that money sits, how we can actually mobilise it and how we prioritise which part of money we can access and deploy first.”
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