When the U.S.-Africa Futures Summit convened in Addis Ababa on August 25, it marked more than a change of venue. After three editions held in Washington, D.C., the fourth gathering took place on African soil, a short distance from the African Union. And it asked a question that has long hovered over conversations about the continent’s future: whose perspectives inform them, and who ultimately shapes the agenda?
For the philanthropic institutions behind the event, that question carries real weight. Convening, they argue, is one of the most powerful tools philanthropy can offer beyond a grant, and its potential grows when institutions collaborate, pooling resources, relationships, networks and influence to accomplish what no single organization could achieve alone. The Summit itself was an exercise in that logic. Humanity United, the Open Society Foundations, Global Futures Collaborative, and the Institute for Security Studies co-convened it, each bringing complementary strengths to create space for a different kind of conversation about U.S.-Africa relations.
The setting gave those conversations institutional weight. The presence of the U.S. Mission to the African Union and the African Union Commission meant official positions could be challenged by perspectives beyond government, and at times they were. In one exchange about the future of U.S.-Africa relations, the U.S. Chargé d’Affaires to the African Union argued that economic cooperation, rather than democracy alone, must form the foundation of the relationship. Many in the room disagreed, the authors among them. Yet they describe it as one of the most candid accounts of Washington’s current thinking they had heard all year. People pushed back, asked difficult questions, and kept talking after the formal sessions ended. That, the authors suggest, is precisely what such spaces should enable: disagreement, deeper listening, and the chance to challenge prevailing assumptions.
Meanwhile, the exchange surfaced harder questions about the shift from aid to trade and investment. Will investments create decent jobs? Will minerals be processed locally? Will communities have a say in agreements affecting their land? And what happens when commercial interests collide with rights? These questions, the authors argue, must shape the terms of engagement from the outset rather than become considerations after agreements have been signed.
Philanthropy’s role here, they write, is not to determine the answers but to help create and sustain spaces where difficult questions can be examined openly. That work demands more than assembling an impressive list of speakers. It requires intentional listening, time for different perspectives, and a willingness to engage with priorities that may differ from philanthropy’s own. It also requires examining philanthropy’s own power. Funders decide whom to invite, what to fund, and which voices to elevate, and without deliberate attention those decisions can reproduce the very exclusions they seek to challenge.
A question posed by one of their partners before the Summit sharpened the point: to what end? Convenings are relatively easy to fund and report on. Participants can be counted, discussions documented, reports produced. What is harder to demonstrate is whether conversations shifted policies, strengthened collective influence, or created conditions for meaningful change. That is where the real value of convening lies, the authors contend.
The question has already prompted a shift in how they think about the Summit’s future. Rather than treating Addis as a standalone event, partners are exploring how to develop it into a year-round platform over the next three years, connecting conversations, relationships and African priorities to opportunities for sustained engagement and influence. That means moving ideas, not just people, across spaces: what is discussed in Addis should inform conversations in Washington, D.C. and other centers of decision-making, while remaining grounded in priorities shaped by African stakeholders themselves. More importantly, it means strengthening alignment among African stakeholders around shared interests before engaging external actors, so that African agency extends beyond participation to building the collective influence needed to shape decisions.
The measure of a summit, they conclude, is not who was in the room or how compelling the conversations were, but what becomes possible because those people came together. The responsibility carried forward from Addis is not simply to bring people together, but to invest collectively in what happens long after everyone has left the room.
Désiré Assogbavi, Open Society Foundations, and Maria Jurua-Kisumbi, Humanity United.