CARISCA’s annual Supply Chain Research Summit is central to our goal of strengthening African supply chain capacity and advancing Africa’s supply chain research globally.
On July 6-8, 2026, CARISCA will host the sixth Annual Supply Chain Research Summit in Accra, Ghana. The 2025 summit, held in Lagos, Nigeria, attracted approximately 350 participants from 17 countries, 87 institutions, and 38 higher education institutions worldwide, featuring more than 81 presentations.
In 2026, we are moving the summit back to Accra, the capital of Ghana, to welcome and accommodate even more supply chain scholars, students, professionals and decision makers to one of Africa’s emerging economies. As in previous summits, the 2026 Summit will be a hybrid event, to be held in person, and virtually via Zoom.
The 2026 summit is envisioned to take a deeper look at how artificial intelligence (AI) technologies are transforming supply chains and organizations across the continent.
Call for Papers
Artificial intelligence (AI) has become an integral part of supply chain practices and policy as it continues to shape and co-evolve with how supply chains operate. AI technologies take various forms and are designed and deployed for different purposes across manufacturing, transport and logistics, healthcare, agriculture, education, and other productive sectors. These technologies include predictive AI (e.g., for demand and disruption forecasting), prescriptive AI (e.g., for optimal scheduling and transportation decisions), cognitive AI (e.g., for supply chain scenario planning), autonomous AI (e.g., robotics and autonomous vehicles), and generative AI (e.g., for producing supply chain reports). The relevance and use of these technologies in African supply chains are expected to grow, given that they are not only inevitable but also have the potential to enhance multi-faceted outcomes such as organizational, supply chain, and community resilience and sustainability.
However, the design, operation, and governance of AI-enabled supply chains in Africa face many challenges.
First, the performance indicators of AI technologies, such as speed, effectiveness, efficiency, and accuracy, depend on the data on which they are trained. Because AI-enabled supply chain technologies are largely developed outside Africa, the training data may not adequately reflect the unique decision-making contexts of African supply chains, including socio-cultural diversity and complexity, cultural norms, values, and priorities, and institutional constraints and opportunities.
Second, inherent biases in AI outputs often reflect the biases of their developers, who may have a limited understanding of the realities in African contexts.
Third, although AI governance is critical, many African countries lack robust policies to regulate the development and use of AI. Voids in country-specific and regional regulations regarding AI-human interface, for example, are a major concern.
Fourth, the resources required to power and operate AI-enabled supply chains cost-effectively, such as reliable electricity and technology-based human capital, remain scarce or underdeveloped in many African countries.
Fifth, African supply chain contexts comprise mainly micro and small-scale organizations that may not be AI-ready. These organizations may struggle to adopt and benefit from AI, and they also risk being cut off from AI-enabled supply chain networks of large organizations. African supply chains must therefore find Africa context-specific strategies to navigate the opportunities and challenges that come with the adoption of AI in supply chains.
The 2026 CARISCA Supply Chain Summit will bring together researchers, experts, practitioners, and policymakers in Africa and beyond to discuss the place of AI in Africa’s supply chains. We welcome researchers to share theoretically and empirically grounded insights from African supply chains. Experts, practitioners, and policymakers are also welcome to offer experiences and perspectives to inform future research on AI-enabled supply chains in Africa.
Summit Tracks and Topics
- Contextual determinants of AI adoption among individuals, teams, and organizations within African supply chains
- AI-enabled supply chain design, operations, and governance in Africa
- Trade-offs and contingencies in the economic and non-economic outcomes of AI-enabled supply chains in Africa for individuals, organizations, and communities
- Transformative outcomes, costs, and contextual boundary conditions of AI-enabled African supply chains
- Orchestration of AI and other supply chain resources
- Humanizing AI-enabled supply chains in Africa
- Ethics and AI-enabled supply chains in Africa
- Logistics management (e.g., transportation, warehousing, and inventory)
- Procurement, purchasing, and sourcing management
- Operations and production management (e.g., product development and commercialization, operations strategies)
- Supply chain management (e.g., relationships, resource flows, network, strategies, etc.)
- Health and pharmaceutical supply chains in Africa
- Humanitarian supply chains and disaster management in Africa
- Agriculture and commodities supply chains in Africa
- Port and harbor operations in Africa
- Public sector supply chains in Africa
- Third-sector supply chains in Africa
- Informal supply chains and actors (entrepreneurs and businesses) in Africa
- African institutions and supply chains
- Serving consumer and industrial markets in Africa
- The interface between local and global supply chains in Africa
- Responses to grand challenges in African supply chains
- Individual, team, operational, and network resilience in African supply chains
- Financing African supply chains
- Other emerging technologies in African supply chains
- Governing AI-enabled supply chains in Africa
- Public policy and emerging challenges and opportunities in African supply chains
- Policy and governance frameworks for agricultural supply chains in Africa
Submission Information
Paper Submission Opens
Paper Submission Deadline
Acceptance Notification
NB: You will need to create an account on the 2026 Summit website by clicking the Sign Up tab before submitting your abstract.