AFEA 3rd Annual CONFERENCE
July 3-5, 2026
HOSTED BY NILE UNIVERSITY
2026 CALL FOR PAPERS

The world is undergoing major geopolitical transformations marked by multipolarity, shifting alliances, intensifying great-power competition, and emerging global challenges related to security, climate change, technology, and development finance. These dynamics have significant implications for Africa’s development trajectories, policy choices, and positioning within the global order.

The AFEA 2026 Annual Conference provides a broad view Africa’s geoeconomic development planning research and policy impacts frontiers. It invites scholars, researchers, and postgraduate students to critically examine Africa’s path to sustainable development while navigating global power shifts through invited presentations. The aim is to foster interdisciplinary dialogue that advances scholarly understanding of Africa’s place in contemporary global politics and development debates. Competitive papers, detailed abstracts, proposals for panels, symposia, tutorials, prize lectures, posters and workshops on thematic aspects of African economic growth and development are welcome, but preference will be given to those that pertain to the
conference theme. Organized sessions are also welcome.

Theme: Africa’s geoeconomic development agenda in anglobal realignment era of global
realignment

Sub-themes:

• Development finance, debt, and global financial
• Health systems governance, social protection, resilience, and digital service
• Conflict, fragility, peace, security, and development in a realigning
• Financial inclusion, fintech, mobile money, balancing innovation with consumer data protection, cybersecurity, and fraud prevention.
• Cross-border data flows, geopolitical tensions, supply chain shocks, trade agreements, regional integration, continental digital markets, interoperability, common standards, and a trust framework for data sharing.
• Governance, democracy, authoritarian influences, and nationalism.
• Technology governance, artificial intelligence, regulatory architecture, and industrial policy
• Natural resources, energy geopolitics, green transitions, and climate change
• Platforms, infrastructure, e-government, and algorithmic decision-
• Africa and Emerging Powers: China, India, Russia, and the Global South
• Taxation, illicit financial flows, and domestic resource mobilization for development.
• African agency, ideas, and norms in global development.
• Youth, demographic change, gender, social policy, and inclusive development.
• Indigenous knowledge, international relations, and comparative politics.
• Migration, cities, urbanization, spatial disparities, trade corridors, cross-border developments, mobility, and global inequalities.
• Political Psychology, Public Opinion, Identity, Culture, and Media
• Methodologies for teaching, learning, and researching economics and the social sciences.
• Africa–West relations in a transitional context: Aid, trade, and
•  

Guidelines for Submission:
Authors may submit abstracts (2-4 pages, within 300 words), full papers or proposals for workshops or panels. Abstracts, panel and workshop proposals and papers must have two title pages. The first page must include the title, primary track designation and the following information about each author: name, affiliation; address; office and home phone numbers; e-mail address. For papers with multiple authors, please note the primary address for future correspondence. The second page must have only the title (for blind peer review). All submissions are to be prepared in MS Word and are to be submitted electronically. Consideration as (1) a paper only, (2) a poster only, or (3) either a paper or a poster.

Abstracts that do not comply with these guidelines will not be reviewed. The Selected Papers Committee will review abstracts in terms of significance to the field, strength of methodology/research design, clarity of writing, and fit within conference topics. Although there is no limit to the number of abstracts an author may submit, each submission must have a different presenter to avoid conflicts in presentation times.

Organized Session Submissions: Submissions should include:

1. The title for the session, along with the session chair and affiliation;
2. A list of all titles (3-5) that belong in the session, including names and affiliations of the author and co-authors, and who will be presenting;
3. A one to two paragraph description of the session that, if accepted, will appear in the conference program; and
4. A one to two paragraph description of the session’s papers and the topical relationship among them.
5. Contact NUN.AFEA@nileuniversity.edu.ng for more information.

The Program Chair and the Selected Papers Chair will review the organized session proposal in terms of coherence with the proposed session title/topic, significance to the field, strength of methodologies/research designs, and clarity of writing. Organized session proposals will be accepted or rejected in whole. The 2026 annual meeting will feature industry and higher education related Organized Sessions.

Acceptances and Proceedings:
Accepted papers, workshop descriptions and panel summaries, will all be published in the Proceedings. A Proceedings template with publication requirements and guidelines is available at www.nileuniversity.edu.ng. Please submit your completed papers early in the proper format.

Best Paper Awards
Authors are encouraged to submit their work for the Best Paper Awards for: (1) regular faculty and (2) junior faculty – doctoral students. Best Paper winners are eligible for fast-track review and publication in the AFEA’s Journal of African Development (JAD). Only full papers received by May 30th, 2026 will be considered for this competition

For More Information

Further information concerning annual meeting registration and the final program will be published on AFEA social media platforms, as well as in the spring issue of the AFEA Newsletter and on the AFEA website. For more information, please contact the AFEA-NUN Co-Chair, Samuel Amponsah (samponsa@afea1.org); AFEA-NUN Co-Chair and Host, Jide Oladipo, (jide.oladipo@nileuniversity.edu.ng); AFEA President Socrates Majune (president@afea1.org); and the AFEA-NUN Selected Papers and Conference Publication Committee Chair, Gbadebo Odularu (boardchair@afea1.org).

Policies For submissions with co-authors, at least one author must be a registered member of AFEA.