At the center of the discussions was a long-standing complaint that African economies are systematically viewed as riskier than peers elsewhere in the world, forcing governments and businesses to borrow at disproportionately high costs.
“The issue is not liquidity. It is risk architecture,” Kenyan President William Ruto told delegates, arguing that the continent’s access to capital continues to be constrained by outdated perceptions embedded within global lending systems.
For African governments already grappling with rising debt obligations, the consequences are immediate. High borrowing costs have increasingly crowded out spending on infrastructure, healthcare and industrial development, even in countries pursuing economic reforms aimed at attracting investment.
The summit, held in Kenya’s capital, carried its own symbolism. It marked the first time France convened such a high-level Africa-focused gathering in an English-speaking African country, reflecting Paris’s effort to broaden its partnerships beyond its traditional Francophone sphere of influence.
For President Emmanuel Macron, the gathering was also an attempt to recast France’s relationship with Africa around investment and economic cooperation rather than military influence or post-colonial ties. French officials said the summit had mobilized roughly €23 billion in investment commitments spanning infrastructure, energy, finance and industrial development.
Yet much of the attention focused less on the headline figures than on the structural reforms African leaders say are urgently needed.
One proposal gaining momentum is the creation of a “first-loss guarantee mechanism,” backed by France, that would help absorb initial investment risk and encourage greater private capital flows into African economies. Macron said he intended to lobby for the initiative at the upcoming G7 summit in France, where President Ruto has been invited to participate.
African leaders also renewed calls for reforms to global credit-rating methodologies, which they argue consistently overstate the continent’s risk profile. Officials say those assessments have made borrowing prohibitively expensive and discouraged long-term investment even in relatively stable economies.
Major ratings agencies, including S&P Global Ratings, Moody’s and Fitch Ratings, reject accusations of regional bias, maintaining that their ratings are based on globally consistent criteria.
Still, momentum behind an African-led alternative appears to be building. The African Union has been advancing plans for a continental credit-rating agency, which supporters argue would provide assessments more reflective of local economic realities.
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres echoed many of those concerns, noting that African countries often face borrowing costs roughly twice as high as advanced economies.
“That is not a market verdict on Africa,” he said. “It is a verdict on the injustices of the system.”
The urgency behind those calls has intensified as traditional development financing begins to contract. Wealthier nations, facing rising domestic spending pressures and geopolitical tensions, have increasingly redirected public resources toward defense and internal priorities, leaving developing economies competing for scarcer pools of capital.
For many African governments, the argument is no longer framed as one of aid, but of access.
Leaders at the summit repeatedly emphasized that Africa’s challenge is not a lack of opportunity or investment potential, but a financial architecture that continues to treat the continent as exceptionally risky despite mounting instability elsewhere in the world.
Whether the Nairobi discussions translate into concrete reforms remains uncertain. Global financial systems tend to evolve slowly, and support among major economies for some of Africa’s proposals remains unclear.
But the summit revealed something more significant than policy negotiations alone: a growing determination among African leaders to challenge the terms on which their economies are judged.
For years, the continent has argued that it has been priced according to perception rather than performance. In Nairobi, that argument moved closer to the center of the global financial debate.
