APN, AAI to host Global Africa Forum in New York on 25 September

Africa Prosperity Network (APN), organizers of the Africa Prosperity Dialogues (APD), in collaboration with the Africa-America Institute (AAI), a premier U.S.-based international organization dedicated to strengthening the human capacity of Africans, will jointly host the second edition of the Global Africa Forum (GAF) on the sidelines of the 79th session of the United Nations (UN) General Assembly in New York City, United States of America.
The Global Africa Forum serves as a platform for connecting the African continent with its diaspora to foster collaboration and capitalize on economic opportunities aligned with the African Union’s Agenda 2063.
The second edition will be held on Wednesday, 25 September 2024, in New York, at Dentons—the world’s largest global law firm by the number of lawyers.

Focus of the forum
The Forum will, among other goals, seek to connect the skills, technology, and financial investments of Global Africans to the development of key sectors such as energy, health, education, housing, transportation, and digital infrastructure on the African continent.
It will also encourage global investments, including from Global African investors, to capitalize on Africa’s single market of 1.4 billion people and promote public-private partnerships for infrastructure projects that connect and integrate African markets.
Additionally, the Global Africa Forum will explore U.S.-Africa economic policies that have the potential to create funding opportunities for large-scale infrastructure projects that will help connect and integrate the African continent.
Stephanie Diatta, Head of International Relations at Africa Prosperity Network, highlighted that “the Global Africa Forum is an important platform to connect people of African descent across the globe to economic opportunities in Africa as the African Union (AU) works on building a single market.”
She added that hosting the event in New York annually as a side event of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) is convenient for mobilizing interest and networking.

Maiden Global Africa Forum
The maiden edition of the forum, held in 2023, witnessed the launch of the Global Africa Network by Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, President of the Republic of Ghana, with the support of notable personalities such as Ahunna Eziakonwa, United Nations Assistant Secretary-General and Director of the Regional Bureau for Africa.
Other attendees included Professor Benedict Oramah, President and Chairman of the Board of Directors at Afreximbank, Albert Muchanga, African Union (AU) Commissioner for Trade and Industry, and Wamkele Mene, Secretary-General of the Africa Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) Secretariat.
The Global Africa Network has a clear objective to mobilize and connect Global Africans—consisting of over 200 million people and their enterprises—to the all-important project of building the world’s largest single market through the AfCFTA.

Scaling investments
The 2024 Global Africa Forum will focus on several key areas to scale up investments in Africa’s infrastructure, including:
Pooling global investments in Africa’s infrastructure.
Leveraging investments from Global Africa.
Making public-private partnership (PPP) projects more attractive to global investors.

GAF and APD 2025
Curated under the theme: “Mobilising Global Africa Investments to Address Africa’s Infrastructure Financing Deficit,” the second edition of the Global Africa Forum aligns with the theme for the 2025 Africa Prosperity Dialogues (APD 2025), which will focus on strategic infrastructure development to enhance the continent’s single market agenda.
The APD, positioned as an annual event, provides a unique platform for Africa’s private sector actors to build relationships and collaborate with the public sector to expedite the realization of Africa’s single market.
APD 2025, scheduled to take place from Thursday, 30 January to Saturday, 1 February 2025, in Accra, is themed: “Delivering Africa’s Prosperity through Infrastructure: Invest. Integrate. Connect.”

Africa Prosperity Network (APN)
The overarching vision of APN is an Africa beyond aid. APN seeks to bring prosperity to Africa by creating platforms for critical dialogues that will reshape the thinking of African leaders and encourage them to take bold steps in trade, the structure of national economies, political conduct, and culture.
APN is also motivated to mobilize African leaders and initiate partnerships that place the people of Africa first while enhancing their standard of living.
APN is guided by values such as trust, diversity, integrity, boldness, innovation, and accountability as it works toward attaining its vision.
APN holds the view that for Africa’s growth and prosperity to be sustainable, it must be inclusive, prioritizing the participation of small and medium-scale enterprises (SMEs), women, and young people in the economic narrative.
To achieve its vision, the Africa Prosperity Dialogues (APD) represents APN’s flagship event; a platform dedicated to leaders of Africa’s business, political, and social sectors to discuss how to enhance intra-African trade as a catalyst for economic prosperity.

Africa-America Institute (AAI)
Founded in 1953, the Africa-America Institute (AAI) seeks to promote the continent’s development through higher education and skills training, convening activities, program implementation, and management.
AAI’s primary model is identifying capacity-building projects and coordinating the programmatic, financial administration, and evaluation necessary to deliver high-impact results.
The Institute raises funds to provide scholarships to smart and under-resourced students to attend top-performing universities in Africa.
It also develops programs that focus on increasing the skills of the next generation of African youth to make them globally competitive. AAI alumni are at the forefront of Africa’s public, non-profit, and private sectors.