May 25th marks Africa Day, a moment to celebrate the continent’s richness, reflect on shared progress, and take action. Here’s everything you need to know about how we’re celebrating Africa Day in the UK.
But first: what is Africa Day?
Africa Day is celebrated every year on May 25th to mark the founding of the Organisation of African Unity (now the African Union) in 1963. It’s a day that honors the continent’s diversity, history, and the ongoing work toward unity and self-determination across its 54 nations. Africa Day is more than a commemoration it’s a call to action. For those of here at ONE and for advocates around the country, it’s an opportunity to push for policies that reflect Africa’s true potential.
The day as it happened
On the 18th of May, ONE Campaign, ODI Global, and partners got the Africa Day celebrations started early, by orchestrating a series of events designed to get decision-makers thinking differently about Africa’s role in solving global problems.
Parliament
The day kicked off with a reception in Parliament bringing together MPs and ONE ambassadors. Our ambassadors heard from Dawn Butler, a Labour MP for Brent East, the first Black female to sit on the Speaker’s Panel of Chairs and first elected African-Caribbean UK Minister.
Our message to parliamentarians was straightforward: the UK has a rare window of opportunity. We’re holding the G20 presidency, co-hosting the Global Partnerships Conference with South Africa, and heading into the G7. That’s leverage. But only if we actually use it to shift how we work with African governments and institutions.
MPs heard from people working on the ground about child survival, health systems, and what partnership actually looks like when it’s not just about aid.
The Main Event: Africa Makes The World Possible
That evening, ONE and ODI Global hosted the bigger reception in London. ONE ambassadors, business leaders, activists. The whole room gathered around one question: how do we talk about Africa differently?
Salome Agbaroji
Salome Agbaroji is the US National Youth Poet Laureate. She performed a poem about hope, the kind that’s an act of resistance when everything around you is telling you to give up.
Hope is an action
We Launched a brand new report on Child Survival. The front cover is designed by acclaimed British-Nigerian artist Yinka Ilori. The report was co-authored with Project Everyone, it laid out a hard truth: child survival progress has stalled for the first time in a generation. But the report didn’t wallow in it. It showed what changes if we actually listen to what African governments need, instead of what we think they should have.
Why This Matters: Changing the Story
When media talks about Africa, it usually defaults to a singular story of crisis (disease, poverty, conflict) but Africa is driving solutions. African innovation, African leadership, African agency. ONE’s mission is changing that narrative. And Africa Day 2026 gives us a platform to actually do it, not just talk about it.
The whole point: this narrative doesn’t get shaped by outsiders. It gets shaped by people with skin in the game who know what’s actually happening.
The Child Survival Report hit hard: without real partnership and sustained investment, preventable child deaths will increase. Full stop. But it also showed what’s possible when you actually listen to African governments and innovators, instead of imposing what donors think they should have. That’s the shift, from aid as charity to partnership as necessity.
This Isn’t Over
Africa Day 2026 wasn’t a finish line. It was a checkpoint. A moment to say: look, the narrative is shifting. People are paying attention. Now what?
The Global Parnerships conference has ended. The reception is wrapped. But the conversations on child health, partnership models, and how the UK uses its position, those are ongoing. They have to be.
If you were at the 18 May reception: stay engaged. Keep pushing. Hold people to what they said they’d do.
If you weren’t there: it’s not too late. Read the Child Survival Report. Follow what happens next. This movement needs people paying attention and calling out when commitments fade.
The moment is real. Africa Day proved it. But moments only matter if we do something with them.
ONE advocates at Africa Day events in 2025
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