MUNI: Africa-France Summit to lift Kenya and East Africa in global order

Kenyan and French teams during a preparatory meeting ahead of Africa-Summit meeting at the Treasury on May 5, 2026 /COURTESY

The inaugural Africa Forward Summit, co-hosted by Kenya and France in Nairobi next Monday and Tuesday (May 11 and 12), takes place at a defining moment in global politics. The international system is undergoing a profound transformation, marked by intensifying geopolitical rivalry, economic fragmentation, technological competition, supply chain disruptions, climate pressures and declining confidence in traditional multilateral institutions.

The era of predictable alliances and uncontested Western dominance is giving way to a fluid multipolar order, in which regional blocs, middle powers and emerging economies increasingly shape global outcomes.

Within this shifting landscape, the Africa-France Summit is more than a diplomatic event. It reflects a broader recalibration of Africa-Europe relations given evolving global realities, while positioning Eastern Africa as an increasingly strategic hub of economic, political and security engagement. For Kenya and the wider region, the summit offers an opportunity to leverage these shifts to accelerate industrialisation, deepen regional integration, strengthen technological capacity and expand African agency in global governance.

The summit is structured around seven interconnected agendas: energy transition and green industrialisation, sustainable agriculture, AI and digital technologies, resilient health systems, the blue economy, peace and security and reform of the international financial architecture. Among these, reform of the international financial architecture is particularly consequential, as it addresses Africa’s persistent challenges of high borrowing costs and limited access to affordable development finance. It also seeks to mobilise larger volumes of both domestic and international capital for development priorities.

The summit also reflects a strategic reorientation in France’s Africa policy. Following declining influence in parts of the Sahel and Francophone West Africa, Paris has increasingly pivoted toward pragmatic engagement with Anglophone Africa, with Eastern Africa emerging as a key priority. This shift is driven by several interests. These include the region’s location along critical Western Indian Ocean maritime routes, its expanding consumer markets and its growing role in global supply chains and Indo-Pacific security dynamics.

At the same time, Eastern Africa offers French firms new frontiers for investment in infrastructure, renewable energy, digital technologies and industrial markets. The region also provides France with an avenue to reassert geopolitical relevance in a more competitive multipolar environment. The decision to co-host the summit in Kenya, the first Anglophone African country to do so at this level, carries both symbolic and strategic weight, underscoring Eastern Africa’s rising importance as a geopolitical and economic frontier.

For Kenya, the summit reinforces Nairobi’s growing status as a regional anchor state. The city hosts major international institutions, including the United Nations Environment Programme and UN-Habitat, while the planned relocation of three other UN agencies further consolidates its position as a principal diplomatic and multilateral hub of the Global South. Beyond its diplomatic profile, Nairobi has also emerged as a regional centre for finance, logistics, mediation, innovation and technology. The timing of the summit is equally significant, as it precedes major global forums, including the G7. It positions Nairobi as a key platform where African priorities can be articulated and advanced within global economic governance and climate finance discussions.

Economically, Kenya serves as the gateway to the broader Eastern African market through the East African Community common market framework. The EAC bloc represents a market of more than 300 million people with a combined GDP estimated at more than $300 billion. This integration framework has expanded regional trade, labour mobility, infrastructure connectivity and investment opportunities across Eastern Africa. For France and other external actors, Kenya therefore offers not only access to its domestic economy but also a strategic entry point into one of the fastest-growing regional markets in the Global South.

Against this backdrop, France’s engagement with Kenya is increasingly shifting from a traditional donor-recipient model toward a more strategic, interest-driven partnership anchored in investment, industrial cooperation, technological exchange and security collaboration. This evolution is reflected in the presence of more than 140 French companies operating in Kenya across key sectors, including infrastructure, renewable energy, pharmaceuticals, agribusiness, logistics, finance, retail and digital technologies. France has become Kenya’s fourth-largest foreign investor and bilateral trade surpassed $300 million by 2025, signalling the depth of growing commercial ties. France also remains a leading bilateral partner in Kenya’s energy sector.

The broader significance of the summit can be understood through the lens of complex interdependence, advanced by Robert Keohane and Joseph Nye. Their theory argues that in a highly interconnected global system, states derive influence not only from military power but also through trade, investment, technology, institutions and diplomacy. The Africa-France Summit reflects this reality. France seeks stable economic and geopolitical partnerships in Africa to secure markets and reinforce its Indo-Pacific strategy, while Kenya and Eastern Africa seek investment, infrastructure, climate finance, industrialisation, technology transfer, and stronger participation in global decision-making.

One of the summit’s key opportunities lies in advancing economic transformation across Eastern Africa by aligning external investment with regional industrial priorities. Realising this potential, however, requires addressing structural constraints that continue to affect competitiveness. The region still faces uneven ease of doing business due to regulatory fragmentation, bureaucratic inefficiencies, weak infrastructure and high cross-border trade costs. Strengthening regulatory harmonisation, improving trade facilitation systems, and enhancing legal and policy predictability will therefore be essential to attracting and sustaining large-scale investment.

In this regard, regional integration becomes central to the summit’s long-term impact. Through the EAC Common Market, Eastern Africa represents a significant collective market with substantial bargaining power, if leveraged effectively. Engaging external partners as a unified bloc rather than as fragmented national economies would enhance negotiating strength, improve investment terms, and increase access to technology transfer and industrial partnerships. It would also reduce the risk of unequal bilateral arrangements that exploit regional fragmentation.

At the same time, Eastern African states have an opportunity to deepen intra-regional integration so that investment flows are more broadly distributed while still reinforcing Nairobi’s role as a regional hub. Strengthening infrastructure connectivity, transport corridors, energy interlinkages, digital systems and regional industrial value chains can position the region for more balanced and inclusive growth. A coordinated regional framework would allow countries to specialise in complementary sectors, with Nairobi anchoring coordination, finance, and innovation, while collectively enhancing regional competitiveness, resilience, and shared prosperity.

The summit also carries significant geopolitical weight as Eastern Africa becomes a key arena in global strategic competition. Kenya’s location along major Western Indian Ocean trade routes strengthens both its own and the region’s strategic importance in maritime security and the blue economy. This opens an opportunity for Kenya and its regional partners to deepen cooperation in maritime surveillance, intelligence sharing, and security coordination. This helps the region better respond to shared challenges such as piracy, trafficking, illegal fishing, and extremism, while supporting a more secure and integrated blue economy.

At the same time, these opportunities must be carefully balanced with sovereignty considerations. Historical experience across Africa shows that external partnerships can deliver significant benefits but also carry risks, where technical cooperation gradually expands into broader political influence if not clearly structured. It is therefore essential that such engagements prioritise local operational control, skills development, technology transfer, intelligence localisation, and strong institutional capacity-building. This will ensure that cooperation strengthens domestic capability rather than creating long-term dependency on external systems.

Importantly, Kenya’s engagement with France should be viewed within a broader strategy of expanding global partnerships. In the emerging multipolar order, African states are increasingly engaging multiple global actors simultaneously in ways that strengthen bargaining power, enhance resilience, and increase diplomatic flexibility. In this context, cooperation with France complements Kenya’s wider relations with Asia, the Gulf states, North America, and other African economies, contributing to a more pragmatic and balanced external engagement strategy.

Ultimately, the Africa-France Summit will be judged not by its diplomatic symbolism but by its ability to deliver tangible developmental outcomes. Its success will depend on whether it strengthens local industries, generates employment, expands technology transfer, deepens regional integration, and reinforces Africa’s strategic autonomy.

The writer is a senior research fellow at Gloceps, a Nairobi-based think tank