The African Century Forum

FROM PROMISE TO POWER

The African Century Forum is a global community of Africans and friends of Africa who believe that Africa’s future will be shaped not simply by what the continent possesses, but by what its people are able to build.

The Forum grows out of the ideas explored in Pete Ondeng’s forthcoming book, The African Century: From Promise to Power, and from more than four decades of engagement with Africa’s public, private and international development sectors.

At its heart is a simple question:

What will it take for Africa to shape the century ahead?

The answer lies not in any single intervention, but in the ability to bring together ideas, leadership, enterprise, institutions, capital and relationships in ways that strengthen Africa’s capacity to create its own future.

The Forum seeks to bring together entrepreneurs, professionals, investors, academics, thinkers, policymakers, leaders and emerging leaders from across Africa and the Diaspora—and friends of Africa who share a commitment to the continent’s future.

It is a place to learn, connect, exchange ideas, build relationships and collaborate.

A COMMUNITY FOR THE AFRICAN CENTURY

The Forum will create opportunities for meaningful engagement through digital communities, conversations, learning programmes, webinars, masterclasses, peer networks and curated gatherings—including an annual flagship African Century Forum.

Members will engage around questions that matter to Africa’s next chapter:

How do we build stronger, more trusted institutions?
How do we cultivate purposeful leadership?
How do we unleash African enterprise and investment?
How do we deepen economic integration?
How do we create systems that enable people, communities and nations to flourish?

The Forum is deliberately conceived as more than a networking platform or a series of events. It is intended to become a community in which ideas lead to conversations, conversations lead to relationships, and relationships create possibilities for collaboration and action.

FROM IDEAS TO ACTION

The Forum will encourage engagement across five interconnected dimensions:

IDEAS
Generating, challenging and sharing fresh thinking about Africa’s future.

LEADERSHIP
Encouraging leaders who combine purpose, integrity and the courage to build.

ENTERPRISE
Connecting and supporting the entrepreneurs, investors and institutions that create Africa’s productive capacity.

INSTITUTIONS
Exploring how stronger systems of trust, governance and collaboration can enable sustainable transformation.

ACTION
Creating opportunities for members to turn ideas and relationships into partnerships, ventures, investments, research and practical initiatives.

These are not separate agendas. They are interconnected dimensions of the work of building an Africa that can create opportunity for its people, exercise greater agency in the world and shape its own future.

EMERGING FROM A JOURNEY

The African Century Forum is emerging from Ohala Africa’s own journey.

What began with a focus on unlocking the economic potential of the Lake Victoria region has evolved into a broader engagement with Africa’s economic and social transformation. Working alongside communities, enterprises, institutions and partners has reinforced a conviction that Africa’s transformation cannot be achieved through isolated interventions.

It requires new thinking, stronger institutions, purposeful leadership, productive enterprise, appropriate capital and a willingness to build for the long term.

Ohala Africa is providing the Forum with its initial institutional home and helping to nurture its development as it builds its own identity, community and partnerships.

The ambition, however, is larger than any one organization.

The Forum is intended to become a meeting place for people across Africa and the Diaspora who are prepared not simply to discuss Africa’s promise, but to explore what it will take to turn that promise into power.

THE JOURNEY AHEAD

The African Century is not simply a prediction. It is a possibility—and a responsibility.

The Forum exists to bring together some of the people who want to help make that possibility a reality.

From Promise to Power. Together.