Africa’s renaissance hinges on partnerships

Africa’s development cannot be willed into existence by any single actor. Not by governments alone, not by markets alone and not by donors alone. That was the founding insight of the African leadership that gave us the New Partnership for Africa’s Development in 2001. It remains the operative principle as Nepad marks 25 years in 2026. The Thabo Mbeki Foundation’s High-Level Business Breakfast on Thursday, 21 May 2026, was a working conversation about the partnerships the next phase of African renewal will require: between African states, between African and global actors and between state and non-state institutions on the continent. The African renaissance cannot be financed by sentiment and it cannot be delivered by governments working in isolation. When presidents Mbeki, Olusegun Obasanjo (Nigeria), Abdoulaye Wade (Senegal), Abdelaziz Bouteflika (Algeria) and Hosni Mubarak (Egypt) shaped the framework that became Nepad, partnership was not a slogan attached to a policy. It was the policy. The plan rested on three interlocking commitments: African ownership of African development; regional integration as the route to scale; and continental renewal anchored in mutual accountability between African states and their global partners. African ownership meant the agenda would be set in Addis Ababa and Abuja, not in Washington or Brussels. Regional integration meant the small size of individual African economies would be overcome through coordinated infrastructure and connected markets. Continental renewal meant Africa would rebuild its institutions and productive base on terms of partnership rather than dependency. Twenty-five years on, that architecture remains correct. What has shifted is the urgency to act on it. The African Union Development Agency carries the implementation mandate. Through the Programme for Infrastructure Development in Africa, Auda-Nepad’s 2025 annual report noted that more than 50 regional projects were assessed for maturity and 24 moved towards