NEW YORK, United States of America, September 2, 2026/APO Group/ –More than 2,000 African and global business leaders plus heads of state will gather in New York on September 20–21 for Unstoppable Africa, flagship event of the Global Africa Business Initiative (GABI) (https://www.GABI.biz/).
 




 

Convened by UN Secretary-General António Guterres and H.E. Mahmoud Ali Youssouf, Chairperson of the African Union Commission, and organized and coordinated by the UN Global Compact, the fifth edition of Unstoppable Africa will convene under the theme “Powering Business, Scaling Economies, Shaping the Future”.

Held on the sidelines of the opening of the 81st session of the United Nations General Assembly, Unstoppable Africa will feature leading  investors, policymakers, creatives, sports executives and decision-makers working to accelerate Africa’s business, trade and investment and amplify its role in shaping global markets.

Sanda Ojiambo, Assistant Secretary-General and CEO of the United Nations Global Compact, said: “This year, we are sharpening the focus on mobilising capital, forging partnerships, building businesses and turning Africa’s assets and opportunities into investable, scalable outcomes. The ambition is not simply to shape how the world sees Africa, but to shape where global capital flows, where value is created and how Africa can capture it.”

The high-level convening comes at a time of global supply chains being redrawn by geopolitical tension, energy insecurity and shifting trade rules. For the African continent, these pressures  create an opportunity to leverage its critical minerals, renewable energy potential, expanding consumer markets and young workforce to attract long-term capital and capture more value from global shifts.

Unstoppable Africa 2026 will look at how the continent can turn these shifts into lasting economic opportunity.  The program will focus on how Africa can capture more value from its critical minerals, strengthen infrastructure and trade, mobilise capital at scale and build more integrated and competitive markets. Discussions will also explore Africa’s energy transition, the development and ownership of AI and digital infrastructure, the financing and global distribution of African creative industries, and how sport can become a stronger engine for investment, talent development and economic growth.

Other confirmed speakers include:

• H.E. Julius Maada Bio, President, Republic of Sierra Leone
• H.E. Duma Gideon Boko, President, Republic of Botswana
• H.E. Paula Ingabire, Minister of ICT and Innovation, Rwanda
• Samaila Zubairu, President and CEO, African Finance Corporation
• Nolitha Fakude, Chairperson, Anglo American South Africa
• Tidjane Thiam, General Partner, Allied Critical Minerals Fund
• Phuthi Mahanyele-Dabengwa, CEO and Executive Director, Naspers
• Olugbenga Agboola, CEO, Flutterwave
• Cameron Bailey, CEO, Toronto International Film Festival
• Wanuri Kahiu, filmmaker
• Akunna Cook, Founder and CEO, Next Narrative Africa Fund
• Luol Deng, former NBA All-Star and President, South Sudan Basketball Federation
• Clare Akamanzi, CEO, NBA Africa
• Amina J. Mohammed, Deputy Secretary-General, United Nations
• Massad Boulos, Senior Advisor to the President of the United States on Arab and African Affairs
• Damilola Ogunbiyi, CEO and Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Sustainable Energy for All

The five themes of GABI and Unstoppable Africa, namely Energy, Digital Transformation, Trade, Creative Industries, and Sport, will be supported by high-level plenaries, CEO and investor roundtables, ministerial dialogues, startup showcases, and GABI Solutions Labs. The 2026 edition will create opportunities to spark transactions, develop investment vehicles, and form cross-border alliances and partnerships. Full implementation of the African Continental Free Trade Area could create a $3.4 trillion market, according to UNCTAD’s 2024 Economic Development in Africa Report, highlighting the scale of the opportunity as regional integration deepens.

Once again, the event will be hosted by Folly Bah Thibault, Senior News Anchor at Al Jazeera Media Network, and Larry Madowo, International Correspondent at CNN, and will spotlight more than 500 nominees in the Unstoppable Africans campaign.

Media partners to date include African Business/New African; African Renewal; Afrique Media; AllAfrica; Arise News; Business Digest Magazine; Citizen TV; EIB Network; Envoy Magazine; The Kenyan Wall Street; News Central TV; SDG News; The Africa Report; The Nation Media Group; TIME Africa.

Unstoppable Africa 2026 will take place at the New York Marriott Marquis, Times Square, 1535 Broadway, New York City. Accredited media and other eligible communication professionals can register at https://apo-opa.co/4xvM3xh.

African Energy Week (AEW) 2026, taking place October 12–16 in Cape Town, will bring this issue into focus through a dedicated session at the Upstream E&P Forum: Resource Nationalism, ESG and Investor Protection: The New Frontier of Oil and Gas Arbitration in Africa. Sponsored by Africa-focused legal and advisory firm CLG, the panel will bring together operators, investors, legal practitioners and government representatives to examine how commercial agreements can be structured to manage disputes before they escalate.

Nigeria provides a clear example of how the legal architecture around upstream investment is evolving. The Petroleum Industry Act, enacted in 2021, overhauled the country’s petroleum fiscal and regulatory framework, changing the terms governing production-sharing contracts, joint ventures and other upstream arrangements. Nigeria has also strengthened its dispute-resolution framework through the Arbitration and Mediation Act of 2023, while the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission has promoted an Alternative Dispute Resolution Center designed to provide a sector-specific mechanism for resolving upstream disputes.

Senegal illustrates another dimension of the challenge. Following first oil at the Sangomar field in 2024 and a rapid production ramp-up, the government established a commission to review existing oil and gas contracts with operators including Woodside and bp. While governments retain the sovereign right to review their resource agreements, such processes can alter the commercial assumptions underpinning investments and raise questions around stabilization provisions, production-sharing terms and other contractual protections.

Across parts of West Africa, political transitions, security disruptions and changes to mining and petroleum legislation are adding further uncertainty for investors. At the same time, geopolitical shocks and shifting global energy policies are testing agreements that were negotiated under very different market conditions. For companies committing billions of dollars to long-life upstream projects, the ability to anticipate and manage those changes has become an increasingly important component of investment decisions.

Arbitration remains a central tool. A review by Nigerian law firm OAL found that by 2025, most cross-border oil, gas and power agreements in Africa expressly identified arbitration as the preferred dispute-resolution mechanism. At AEW 2026, the Upstream E&P Forum panel will examine why arbitration continues to dominate cross-border energy contracts and how bilateral investment treaties, domestic legislation, ESG obligations and changing regulatory requirements interact when disputes arise.

“You cannot do a deal in Africa today without thinking seriously about how you would resolve a dispute if the terms change. We’re increasingly seeing arbitration planning as part of the commercial conversation from the start, and rightly so,” said NJ Ayuk, Executive Chairman of the African Energy Chamber. “That commercial focus is central to AEW 2026, which brings governments, investors, operators and legal experts together to address the practical conditions required to unlock the continent’s next wave of energy investment.

The Resource Nationalism, ESG and Investor Protection session will examine the intersection of contractual protections, regulatory change, political risk and the technical complexities of energy projects, giving investors and governments a practical forum to consider how stronger dispute-resolution frameworks can support Africa’s next generation of oil and gas investment.

AFC’s 2026 deal flow demonstrates the depth and breadth of that capital. In August, the institution led investors into a $2.5 billion private placement for the Dangote Petroleum Refinery and Petrochemicals complex in Lagos, the largest publicly disclosed primary equity private placement in African history. The deal was oversubscribed 3.7 times. In July, AFC reached financial close on the $753 million Lobito Corridor Railway Project in Angola alongside the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) and the Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA), a 1,300 km cross-border rail rehabilitation linking the Port of Lobito with the DRC border. AFC financing also supported what will become Burkina Faso’s largest power plant.

AFC raised a record $2 billion syndicated loan in June, upsized from an initial $1.6 billion target, drawing lenders from Asia Pacific, Europe, the Middle East and Africa. In July it raised $500 million through a Eurobond at the tightest pricing in its history, and in August it became the first African institution to issue a digital bond, raising CHF 350 million on a regulated Swiss digital exchange. AFC’s assets now exceed $19 billion, while its membership spans 48 African countries. The institution holds A-level investment-grade ratings from both S&P and Moody’s.

AFC’s Gold Partnership gives AEW 2026 delegates direct access to an institution that operates across the full infrastructure and energy value chain, from project development and advisory through to equity, debt and risk mitigation. The corporation’s State of Africa’s Infrastructure Report 2026, launched in Nairobi in April, found that Africa’s non-bank domestic capital pools now exceed $2 trillion and argued that the priority has shifted from raising capital to deploying it productively. AEW 2026 is built around that challenge, and AFC’s presence strengthens the event’s ability to connect bankable projects with the institutions prepared to finance them.

“AFC has shown consistently that African infrastructure and energy projects can attract serious capital when the structuring is right and the institutions behind them are credible. Having them at AEW strengthens the conversation between project sponsors and the financiers who can move deals forward,” says NJ Ayuk, Executive Chairman of the African Energy Chamber.