Africa Forum: Centering an African Vision for a New Multilateral Future

1. Africa’s Vision for Multilateral Cooperation: The global multilateral system is flawed, beset by polarization and often plain absent. It has also too often underperformed, including on trade, debt relief, investment, and more recently on climate change. There is thus widespread agreement that the world needs more just and equitable solutions – especially for Africa - but what form should these take? What is the direction of travel? What needs to change?
    
2. Geopolitical Competition and Influence: China has emerged as a dominant player in strategic resource investment in Africa, giving it significant advantages in leveraging political influence both across the continent and within the multilateral system. At the same time, the US, EU, and other global powers lack a coherent strategy to engage with Africa’s diverse economies, increase investment, decrease corruption, and help address development priorities and economic growth. How will African states and the African Union navigate this context and leverage their own geopolitical influence to enhance their capacity to compete in the global economy?
    
3. Climate Leadership, Conservation & Peace: The challenge of peace and stability in the 21st century will be shaped – perhaps more than any other factor – by climate change, biodiversity, and the conservation of natural ecosystems and resources. The African continent has enormous potential – due to its size, the scale of its natural resources and ecosystems, and its extraordinary biodiversity – to contribute solutions and innovations that can reduce these challenges. In short, the future of the planet is conservation, and the future of conservation is in Africa. Yet, across the continent African economies have been beset by corruption and governance challenges, priced out of carbon markets, and have suffered from a lack of investment in new climate mitigation and adaptation technologies. How can Africa’s rapidly developing and dynamic economies harness economic growth, increase jobs, reduce emissions, conserve precious ecosystems, and provide solutions for the global climate crisis? What is needed?
    
4. Harnessing Africa’s Demographic Dividend: Africa’s demographic transition may be among its most significant assets, but also its most significant challenges. In 1950, the African continent made up only 8% of the global population. By 2050, more than 25% of the global population will be African, and the African population alone will be more than 2.5 billion people. More significantly, as birthrates decline in the “Global North,” by 2040 more than one-third of young people on the planet will live in Africa. Africa has the youngest median age (19) of any region, and by 2035 Africa will have the largest potential workforce anywhere in the world – while advanced economies in then “Global North” continue to place structural limitations on immigration and African economic growth and mobility. In this context, the demographic dividend comes with significant questions: With high-unemployment and limited economic prospects, today more than 60% of young Africans are seeking to emigrate. Can Africa’s diverse economies grow fast enough to ensure opportunity, jobs, and livelihoods for this young demographic? How will education systems need to transform to education and train young people for the jobs of the 21st century economy? What other changes are needed to ensure that girls and young women share equal access to opportunities and are also empowered to succeed? And how will Africa’s diverse states and regional alliances leverage this demographic dividend on the global stage? What policies, investments, and international alliances will African countries prioritize, and who will benefit most?

The Forum will convene approximately 40-50 participants for a 4-day program at Salzburg Global, based at Schloss Leopoldskron in Salzburg, Austria. The session will consist of panels, discussions, small group dialogues, and informal debates. Emphasis will be placed on open and off-the-record exchange of views and ideas. Chatham House rule applies. It will be a forward-looking opportunity to highlight Africa’s vision for global engagement and peace, as well as how to center Africa in ways that change the conversation about the future of Africa’s role in the 21st century’s geopolitical balance of power. 

Following the discussions, Salzburg Global will work with select partners to produce a written report summarizing critical findings and recommendations without attribution, and generate other media to raise public awareness of the Forum’s findings.

Participants will include those with insights into Africa’s economy and politics, and the dynamics of global economic and technological interdependence from a variety of stakeholder perspectives. The forum will assemble an intergenerational, international, and interdisciplinary group from government, the private sector, and civil society to engage in off-the-record conversations to evaluate the opportunities with and within the African Continent and to highlight and celebrate uniquely African solutions to global challenges.