NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

The flagship event of the Netherlands-African Business Council (NABC), Africa Works! is a biennial conference organized to position, promote and market the African continent as a valuable trade and investment destination.

The fourth edition takes place onApril 8 and 9, 2019 at the Van Nelle Fabriek in Rotterdam. Africa Works! aims to inform, inspire, and connect the Dutch and European private sector with a multitude of companies and government representatives from Africa. Previous editions of Africa Works! welcomed 400-500 participants per day from the African and European private sector as well as government and knowledge institutions.

Africa Works! has featured high-level keynote speakers like Queen Máxima of the Netherlands, then-minister of Foreign Trade Ms. Lilianne Ploumen, Mr.  Amine Bouabid, CEO of the Bank of Africa and Mr. Klaas Knot, President of the Dutch Central Bank (DNB).  You can see an impression of Africa Works! 2016 here. For the first time Africa Works! will be co-organized along with NLinBusiness and the German-African Business Association, Afrika-Verein.

The future of Africa is urban. Therefore, the theme of Africa Works! 2019 is Future African Cities with an aim to connect African urbanization challenges to business opportunities for the European private sector. The first day of Africa Works! 2019 will be dedicated to ‘Building Future African Cities’ while day 2 is dedicated to ‘Powering African Cities’.