London becomes the capital of African deal-making this week. The FT Africa Summit returns to The Landmark hotel in Marylebone on October 21 and 22 for its 13th edition, under the theme 'Mobilising Growth in a New Global Order,' with African heads of state and ministers on one side of the podium and the investors who price their debt on the other.
The cast underlines the format: Ghana's President John Dramani Mahama gives the opening keynote interview, joined by former Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo, former Tanzanian president Jakaya Kikwete, industrialist Aliko Dangote, Mo Ibrahim, Ethiopia's finance minister Ahmed Shide and Britain's international development minister, with South Africa's finance leadership among the delegations courting capital.
Day one works through the future of finance, domestic capital mobilisation, African fintech, financing for small and medium-sized enterprises, gold reserve management and the economics of fast-growing cities. Day two turns to reform, matching capital to risk, trade under rising tariffs, the Red Sea corridor, U.S. policy toward Africa, and deeper ties with the Gulf, China and India.
What is different this year is the calendar around the summit. Two weeks after Africa launched its own credit rating agency, the more interesting question is no longer what the room thinks of Africa — it is who gets to set the price of African risk.
For decades, African borrowers have argued that global rating agencies overprice their risk, raising borrowing costs across the continent. A home-grown agency does not settle that argument, but it changes who makes it — and London, this week, is where the case will be put directly to the buyers.
