MANENO: Africa forward or France forward? Nairobi Declaration must face hard questions

Africa forward or France forward? Nairobi Declaration must face hard questions

Now that the Africa Forward Summit 2026 in Nairobi has concluded and issued its 11-point Nairobi Declaration, the applause has grown louder. The language is ambitious, the themes expansive and the intentions polished.

Peace and security, food security, health care cooperation, energy access, digital transformation, AfCFTA, youth employment, climate finance, global financial reform — everything is there.

On paper, it reads like a grand roadmap for African renewal. But that is precisely why Africans must now ask the harder question: is this truly a roadmap for Africa’s advancement, or another elegantly worded framework through which France refashions its influence on the continent?

That question is not cynical. It is historically responsible.

France does not engage Africa from a blank moral slate. It comes with a long and deeply contested record of influence, interference, economic self-interest and selective loyalty to African regimes that served its strategic goals.

In much of Francophone Africa, the language of partnership has too often walked hand in hand with dependency, military entanglement, political manipulation and the preservation of structures more useful to Paris than to African sovereignty.

That history does not vanish because a summit has been rebranded, relocated to Nairobi and wrapped in the language of innovation and co-development.

Indeed, the Nairobi Declaration’s breadth is itself a reason for caution. The more expansive a summit’s promises are, the easier it becomes for responsibility to evaporate into generality.

Peace, health, energy, agriculture, digital competitiveness, financial reform, education, climate, infrastructure, youth employment — all noble goals, certainly. But where are the binding commitments? 

Where are the timelines? Where are the public accountability mechanisms? Where are the figures, the enforceable obligations, and the protections against old patterns of elite capture? A declaration that promises everything too often delivers very little beyond diplomatic satisfaction.

This is where the summit’s most glaring weakness lies. The Nairobi Declaration speaks the language Africans want to hear, but it remains thin on the hard architecture that would convert aspiration into justice.

It says Africa should have a stronger voice in global financial institutions. Good. It speaks of modernising agriculture and strengthening value chains. Fine. It calls for support to African-led peace efforts, vaccine production, digital growth and youth employment. All desirable. But none of these answers the basic political question: who will benefit first and most?

Will the ordinary Kenyan, Senegalese, Ivorian, Malian or Cameroonian feel any direct improvement from this declaration? Will smallholder farmers gain real support, or will agricultural “partnership” become another channel for imported dependency?

Will digital competitiveness mean African technological sovereignty, or merely a larger footprint for French capital and platforms? Will clean energy investment create local jobs and affordable access, or simply open profitable corridors for foreign firms? Will security cooperation actually strengthen democratic stability, or continue the old habit of legitimising regimes so long as they remain geopolitically useful?

These are not abstract concerns. They are the lessons of history.

France has spent decades speaking of solidarity while often practising the politics of advantage. It has too often embraced African strongmen when convenient, frowned upon sovereignty when inconvenient and defended its interests under the polished language of cooperation.

That is why the burden of proof lies not with sceptical Africans, but with France itself. If Paris truly wants a new chapter with Africa, then it must demonstrate that this summit is not merely a softer rebranding of old influence management.

President William Ruto, too, must not escape scrutiny here.

Kenya cannot afford to host glamorous diplomatic spectacles that inflate elite relevance while yielding little practical value for the public. If Nairobi is to serve as the stage for a supposed reimagining of Africa-France relations, then Kenyans and Africans alike have every right to demand more than lofty communiqués.

They are entitled to ask what jobs will be created, what industries will be strengthened, what technologies will be transferred, what local enterprises will be empowered and what protections exist against this summit becoming yet another elite conversation detached from popular need.

Africa must also confront its own weakness in these engagements. Too often, our governments are too easily seduced by high-level access, presidential handshakes and the prestige of being included in “strategic dialogue”. But diplomacy without insistence is just flattery in formal dress.

Africa should not be approaching France as a grateful junior partner. It should be negotiating as a continent with memory, leverage, resources and the right to demand terms that protect its autonomy and materially benefit its people.

The Nairobi Declaration may yet become meaningful, but only if it is measured ruthlessly against outcomes. Africans should not be impressed by vocabulary. They should be watching for evidence: fairer trade terms, visible local employment, stronger domestic industries, real policy space, genuine technology transfer and partnerships that do not collapse the moment African choices diverge from French preferences.

Without that, “Africa Forward” will sound less like a continental promise and more like a diplomatic slogan masking old priorities.

So yes, the summit has ended. The declaration has been signed. The smiles have been photographed. But the real verdict lies ahead, far from the conference hall. If the resolutions do not trickle down into the lives of ordinary Africans, then this summit will join a long line of elegant gatherings that celebrated partnership while preserving dependency.

Africa has heard enough promises. What it now requires is proof.