The UK–Rwanda Climate Partnership Conference convened by ACES

On March 24th – 25th, The Africa Centre of Excellence for Sustainable Cooling and Cold-Chain (ACES) will convene the UK–Rwanda Climate Partnership Conference, a landmark event for advancing green investment, innovation, and sustainable infrastructure across Africa including accelerating the adoption of sustainable, resilient, cooling and cold-chains across the continent.

Taking place on the ACES Campus in Kigali, Rwanda, and themed “Catalysing Green Investment in Africa”, the conference will bring together an impressive range of speakers, panellists, and delegates from government, industry, academia and the investment community. It will be opened by the Rwandan Ministry of Environment and the British High Commission and serve as both a high-level platform for emphasising the strategic importance of the UK–Rwanda climate partnership, as well as a practical, solutions-orientated forum for developing delivery focussed action.

Catalysing Investment for a Greener, More Resilient Future

Africa’s shift towards climate-resilient, low-carbon development requires a substantial increase in green investments in sustainable infrastructure, innovation, and skills development. Yet across the continent, climate ambition often outpaces the regulatory certainty, technical capability and certification systems needed to convert commitments into bankable projects.

Among the most vital yet insufficiently developed sectors is sustainable, resilient, cooling and cold-chain systems, which are fundamental to ensuring food security, public health, trade, and productivity. Despite their centrality to economic transformation, these systems remain under-capitalised due to fragmented standards, limited testing, certification and compliance infrastructure, skills shortages, and insufficient investor confidence in delivery ecosystems.

The UK–Rwanda climate partnership reflects a shared commitment to advancing practical, investment-led climate solutions within a coherent delivery framework. It demonstrates how climate finance, regulatory reform, industrial capability and standards-based market development can be aligned to reduce systemic investment risk and unlock scalable private capital.

In this context, ACES operates as an integrated delivery platform that strengthens the regulatory, technical and workforce foundations required for scalable green investment, thereby catalysing the uptake of investment opportunities. To this end, it supports regulatory implementation, equipment testing and certification, inspector and technician training, industry incubation, and the development of financeable business models - reinforcing the market architecture needed to reduce risk and build investor confidence in sustainable cooling and cold-chain systems.

The conference will demonstrate how the UK–Rwanda partnership is advancing Africa’s green transition and how ACES can serve as a continental hub for innovation, market development, and investment mobilisation. Importantly, it will strengthen the dialogue between governments, financiers, development partners, academia, and industry on translating climate ambition into investable opportunities, as well as define the priority actions required to build confidence for long-term private-sector engagement in sustainable, resilient, cooling and cold-chain systems. 

Two days with two distinctly focussed themes.

March 24th – Partnership, Policy and Green Finance

Day 1 will explicitly examine the gap between climate commitments and investable projects, focusing on the regulatory certainty, certification infrastructure, and workforce capabilities required to reduce risk and crowd in private capital. A high-level forum for dialogue on climate finance, partnership frameworks, and investment pathways, it will include senior-level interventions, panel sessions on the UK–Rwanda partnership, climate finance and innovation, spotlight presentations, and investor-focused discussions. 

March 25th – ACES Technical and Innovation Day

Day 2 will move from strategy to system design, identifying the regulatory reforms, certification mechanisms, workforce scaling models, and financing architectures required to operationalise investment-ready cold-chain ecosystems. This will be a practical, solutions-oriented day highlighting ACES as a working platform for innovation and delivery. Sessions will focus on:

• Agriculture and food systems (cold-chains and post-harvest management)
• One Health (climate-resilient health and vaccine cold-chains)
• Refrigeration, skills, and green industrial development

The day will include thematic discussions as well as guided demonstrations across the ACES Campus. 

Who will be there?

The conference will bring together a diverse range of participants and is specifically designed to enable structured cross-sector dialogue focused on investment readiness, institutional capability, and scalable delivery models. Speakers, panellists and delegates include:

• Government representatives from Rwanda and the UK.
• Investors, financial institutions, and impact funds.
• Private sector actors in cooling, energy, agriculture, logistics, and health supply chains.
• Development partners and multilateral organisations.
• Academic and research institutions.
• Industry associations and technical experts.
• Media practitioners.  

By invitation only.  For further information, please contact [email protected] or [email protected]