Assahafa.com
Nearly 800 global executives gathered last week at the annual Choiseul African Business Forum at the Rabat Marriott Conference Center in the bustling neighborhood of Agdal.
The Forum, composed of decision makers from more than 60 countries, ended with a clear collective message: Africa is no longer just a place to invest, but a full partner in the co-creation of value.
“Made With Africa embodies this new rule of chosen sovereignty. It invites us to co-industrialize, co-innovate and co-export, capitalizing on our resources, talents and know-how,” said Ryad Mezzour, Morocco’s Minister of Industry and Trade. “Our countries may not have everything, but they complement each other. Together, we have everything: energy, resources, youth, markets, and ambition.”
Young trailblazers shaping Africa’s emergence as a global powerhouse
Ministers, business leaders, public and private executives, investors, and innovators from Africa, the Gulf, and Europe came together to co-construct new competitive, sustainable, and inclusive economic models, placing African economies at the heart of global value chains.
Some were hailed for their business innovations and contributions to their nation’s economy, while others spoke of their innovative projects. They all shared a common goal: helping Africa emerge as an inexhaustible economic powerhouse.
“It is a kind of think tank,” stated Pascal Lorot, President and Founder of the Choiseul Institute, which initially started out as a platform for identifying and recognizing young (under 40) leaders reshaping the French economy. In 2012, Lorot decided to do the same in Africa.
“We launched the African platform twelve years ago, which now has together more than 1,200 ‘Choiseulians’ within 51 of the 54 countries on the African continent. So it is a very large-scale network,” Lorot explained.
This network consists of “coming of age” executives who tend to be younger, more assertive, and above all, more productive, he stressed. They are mostly under forty years old and share in common a high level of accomplishment. Business happens when they are put in a conference together.
Six years ago, Choiseul created the African Business Forum and held its first and second events in Nice, France. The third annual business forum was moved to Morocco and has remained here since: twice in Casablanca, last year in Marrakesh, and this year in Rabat.
Morocco’s growing continental leadership
“We feel comfortable here,” said Lorot. “So we decided to come here. At each of these events, we have been welcoming between 700 and 1,000 executives, broadly speaking, from 60 countries.”
Delegates from the EU and the Gulf states have been participating in the forum as well. As Lorot put it, “Rabat is the capital of a very influential Kingdom which is between Europe and Sub-Saharan Africa. So it is a gateway.”
Morocco actively markets itself as the “Gateway to Africa” for international investors, leveraging its political stability and advanced infrastructure. A large part of King Mohammed VI’s “Atlantic Initiative,” announced in 2023, is to deepen regional integration and position Morocco as a key link between the Atlantic and the Sahel. Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger have formally endorsed the plan.
“It is the first investor in sub-Saharan Africa following South Africa,” continues Lorot. “Sixty percent of Moroccan investment is going to sub-Saharan Africa. Morocco is also a big economy.”
Morocco has reportedly invested nearly $5 billion in sub-Saharan Africa over the past decade, making it the largest investor in West Africa and the second-largest intra-African investor overall. Projects like the deep-water port in Dakhla and the $25 billion Nigeria-Morocco gas pipeline are key to this investment strategy, according to a recent report from the Policy Center for the New South.
Banking & Finance, Telecommunications, Agribusiness, Real Estate, and Mining are the main sectors of investment from both state-owned enterprises and private sector companies.
“I rode into the city from the airport and was quite impressed,” said Fatoumata Sonko. “Rabat is a beautiful historic and yet modern city.”
Africa is rapidly shifting from follower to shaper of global trends
An agri-food technologies student at Gaston Berger University in Saint-Louis, Sonko is an up-and-coming Choiseulian who co-founded Patat’Innov based in Senegal. She was also one of the many panelists of this year’s event, which gave her an opportunity to share her experience as a young executive entrepreneur.
Sonko’s company was one of five winners of the Hackathon Nutrition, a program sponsored by UNICEF to help improve the nutritional quality of baby food using locally available ingredients. Patat’Innov formulated a plan to use sweet potatoes, bissap (a popular West African drink made from hibiscus leaves), and moringa to provide a healthy and inexpensive food source for infants.
Abir Leheta, who is among the Forbes list of 100 Most Powerful Businesswomen 2025, was awarded the Grand Prix Choiseul Africa. Since 2015, Leheta has been the CEO of Egytrans, a national transport and logistics provider. Admittedly more comfortable in speaking English, Leheta delighted and impressed the audience by delivering her acceptance speech in French.
Ivoirian financier Stanislaus Zézé was chosen as Choiseul Africa Leader of the Year for his successful and expanding company, Bloomfield Investment Corporation, the first credit risk rating agency of its kind in West Africa. With the donning of red socks is his signature look across French-speaking Africa, Zézé recently capitalized on the branding power of this recognition by co-authoring the book “The Man with the Red Socks“.
Choiseul Africa has regional branches in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, and Nairobi, Kenya, which serve to update the Choiseulians, of which half are French-speaking and the other half are Anglophones.
Doha will be the location of the Africa-Gulf Cooperation Dialogue on December 8, where Choiseul Arabian Gulf will participate as a leading partner.
Local Moroccan companies that partnered with this year’s Choiseul African Business Forum include Aba Technology, IMIS Institut Marocain d’Intelligence Strategique, OCP Nutricrops, SMIT Tourism, and Engineering and Investment.
Will next year’s Forum be in Rabat or another major Moroccan city? Lorot did not give a confirmed answer, but chances are the event will enter the minds of Africa through the continent’s “gateway.”
“The Africa of ‘faire’ (doing) is today asserting itself as a power of balance and innovation. It no longer follows the world’s movement: it leads it. And it’s up to us, through Choiseul, to support this movement, structure it and help it grow,” concluded Lorot.
Source: Morocco word news
