President William Ruto has called on African governments to move beyond policy pledges and focus on implementing practical, bankable projects that can accelerate industrialisation and economic transformation across the continent.
Speaking on Tuesday during the Africa Forward Summit 2026 at the Kenya International Convention Centre in Nairobi, President Ruto said Africa must transition decisively from ambition to execution in order to unlock its full economic potential.
He emphasised the need for African governments, including Kenya, to fully implement existing commitments on regulatory harmonisation, market integration and industrial policy reforms.
“We move decisively from ambition to execution, from commitments to bankable projects and from dialogue to delivery,” he said.
According to him, effective implementation of such frameworks is key to unlocking Africa’s manufacturing potential and driving sustainable economic growth across member states.
“To African governments like Kenya, let us fully implement our commitments on regulatory harmonization, market integration and industrial policy so that we can unlock Africa’s manufacturing potential.”
The summit brought together Heads of State, policymakers and development partners in Nairobi for high-level discussions aimed at strengthening continental cooperation, boosting intra-African trade and attracting investment into key sectors.
The Africa Forward Summit continues to focus on strategies
to enhance industrial capacity, improve cross-border trade systems and
accelerate economic transformation across Africa through coordinated policy
action and investment-driven initiatives.
Ruto said that Africa approaches this summit not from the
margins of global affairs, but as a strategic actor in its own right, endowed
with vast natural resources, expanding markets, and one of the greatest
reservoirs of youthful talent and innovation anywhere in the world today.
“By the year 2050, one in every four people on earth will be
African. That reality alone will shape the future of labour, markets,
urbanisation, energy demand, and global economic growth,” he said.
The President added that during the summit, deliberations will focus on priorities fundamental to Africa’s development trajectory and long-term prosperity, domestic mobilisation of resources for Africa’s development at scale, reform of the international financial architecture, development of transport, logistics, and connectivity infrastructure, energy transition and green industrialisation, and youth skills development to foster creativity, innovation, entrepreneurship, and AI-driven transformation.
The President said the summit must prioritise confronting, with honesty and urgency, the question of how Africa finances its own transformation.
“The era in which Africa’s development was principally framed through aid, dependency, and unsustainable borrowing must give way to a new paradigm grounded in investment, innovation, domestic resource mobilisation, and strategic partnerships built on sovereign equality and mutual benefit. Because Africa is not part of the global problem. Africa is part of the global solution,” he said.
“Our continent possesses vast natural resources, critical minerals, fertile land, immense renewable energy potential, expanding consumer markets, dynamic entrepreneurs, and the youngest population in the world.”
