Cambridge's African students have convened one of the continent's most serious conferences on power and capital
This week, while African presidents, business executives, and sovereign wealth fund managers fly into the University of Cambridge, the real headline is who brought them there.
On Friday 9 and Saturday 10 May 2025, the 11th Annual Cambridge Africa Together Conference will bring over 250 delegates to Cambridge for one of the continent's most globally connected forums on economic power, policy, and political leadership. Orchestrated entirely by the African Society of Cambridge University, this student-led initiative has drawn a level of attention and credibility that few academic institutions, let alone student organisations, can claim.
This year's theme, 'The Flames of the Big Four, Shining with Many More', repositions how African investment trends are commonly understood. The 'Big Four'—Nigeria, South Africa, Kenya, and Egypt—continue to dominate foreign direct investment and venture capital flows on the continent. But the organisers argue that this concentration hides a deeper truth: progress is being made across Africa along other, less headline-driven metrics—governance, regional integration, institutional reform, innovation and long-term planning.
The conference challenges the assumption that power only sits where the capital goes.
And the programme reflects that challenge.
Confirmed speakers include His Excellency Ndaba Gaolathe, Vice President and Minister of Finance of the Republic of Botswana; Mr Armando Manuel, Chairman of the Angola Sovereign Wealth Fund; Mrs Mukwandi Chibesakunda, Chief Executive Officer of Zambia National Commercial Bank; Dr Patricia Nzolantima, Chairwoman of Bizzoly Holdings; and Mr Kennedy Agyapong, Ghanaian business tycoon and former Member of Parliament.
Across eight strategic sessions, two keynote addresses, and a competitive inter-university debate, the conference offers not another networking event, but a platform for serious, high-level engagement.
The opening keynote by Vice President Gaolathe will examine Botswana's governance and fiscal model, focusing on how stability, policy clarity and long-term discipline can produce results, even in smaller economies.
Several sessions focus directly on Africa's business and investment future:
Forging Growth Through Fiscal Transformation, featuring Malawi's Minister of Trade and Industry, Mr Vitumbiko Mumba, alongside Mr Armando Manuel, will address industrial competitiveness, sovereign capital, and public finance reform.
New Frontiers in Fintech and Financial Power, with Mrs Mukwandi Chibesakunda and Mr Mobolaji Bammeke, Chief Compliance Officer at Flutterwave, will explore how digital finance and regulation are reshaping Africa's financial infrastructure.
Inclusive Investments and the Race to Prosperity, led by Dr Patricia Nzolantima, will present a vision for gender-lens investing as a lever for economic transformation.
The most anticipated student-centred element of the programme is the Ichikowitz Family Foundation Inter-University Africa Debate, a competitive debate for a cash prize between teams from the University of Cambridge, University of Oxford, London School of Economics and Political Science, and Imperial College London. The debate motion— 'The House Believes Foreign Investment Is Deepening Inequality and Dependency in Africa' —is rooted in the Ichikowitz Family Foundation's 2024 African Youth Survey, which revealed that 72 per cent of African youth believe foreign investors exploit the continent's natural resources for their own benefit.
As investment continues to concentrate in the 'Big Four', the debate invites a necessary confrontation: whether Africa's dependency on external capital is entrenching inequality and eroding sovereignty under the banner of development.
Other sessions examine different dimensions of power. The Making of Africa's Future Presidents features Mr Kennedy Agyapong and His Excellency Peter Obi, two recent presidential contenders from Ghana and Nigeria respectively, discussing public trust, political ambition, and the responsibilities of national leadership. Driving Africa's Health Revolution, with Professor Tumani Corrah, Founder of the Africa Research Excellence Fund, focuses on scientific sovereignty. The Guns Behind Governance and Regional Security features Lieutenant General Abdulrahman Dambazau, former Minister of Interior of Nigeria, on the balance between state and security. Sustainable Infrastructure for a Modern Africa, with Mr Owen Chomanika, Malawi's Minister of Natural Resources and Climate Change, will address infrastructure and climate policy. The final session, The Power and Politics in Educating the Youth, features Ms Chido Cleopatra Mpemba, Special Envoy for Youth at the African Union Commission, on access, curriculum control and civic leadership development.
This is not a conference for show. It is a working forum. And while it is led by students, its impact reaches far beyond academia.
What the organisers have achieved is not simply notable for their age or institution. It is notable because they have constructed a space serious enough to attract current and future presidents, ministers, financiers, and institutional leaders—not as a gesture, but as participants in the conversation.
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