19 Africa in the World

Introduction

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This theme examines how shifts in global power and influence could affect Africa’s development prospects and intra-African relations, focusing on the top tier of African states with the greatest potential for power and influence, as measured by various indices. Africa’s development is framed by four global scenarios examined in the theme on Global Power Shifts. These scenarios are a Sustainable World, a Growth World, a Divided World, and a World at War.

Africa’s current subsidiary status relative to developed regions means the continent is disproportionately affected by global tensions and developments that shape its growth, security and development.  It occurs even as 18.8% of the world’s population lived on the African continent in 2025, a share that will likely increase to more than 26% by 2050, though this varies slightly in the four global futures scenarios.

Since 2000, African countries such as the Seychelles, Mauritius and Botswana have performed well, with Ethiopia and Rwanda experiencing some of the fastest economic growth rates in the world. In fact, most African countries have achieved substantial improvements in health, education and basic services since independence. Progress has, however, been insufficient to close gaps with faster-improving regions, as measured by rates of extreme poverty, inequality, infant mortality and life expectancy. Measures of income have fared even worse, but not for all countries and everywhere.

For example, although geographically proximate, the quality of life in Europe and Africa differs vastly. The average GDP per capita (in PPP terms) in North Africa is only 27% of that in the neighbouring European Union (EU), and there is an almost 9-year gap in average life expectancy. North Africa's development indicators are significantly higher than those of sub-Saharan Africa, where average GDP per capita in PPP terms is only 9% of the EU average, and life expectancy is almost 16 years shorter.   

Looking to the future, Africa sits at the intersection of the global energy transition, critical mineral supply chains and demographic change, making it both strategically valuable and politically exposed in a more transactional world. How major powers choose to engage Africa—and how African states respond—will therefore be an early test of whether the emerging global system fragments into spheres of influence or evolves towards a more plural and negotiated order.

Africa's exposure to global shocks is not new, but the nature of its external dependence has changed. During the Cold War, strategic alignment dominated external engagement. In the post-Cold War period, development cooperation, trade and investment became more prominent. The current period combines these dynamics: economic partnerships are increasingly shaped by strategic competition, security concerns, the design of energy and mineral supply chains, and technological rivalry.

Although no African state is likely to emerge as a first-tier global power by 2050, changes in the international distribution of power will significantly shape the policy space available to African countries. The central question is whether African states can convert intensifying external competition into development finance, technology transfer, market access and greater strategic autonomy.

Africa, however, is not a single country. Any aggregation of ‘African’ power potential or influence should be approached with caution. Unlike the European Union (EU), whose institutions exercise significant supranational authority in selected policy areas, the African Union (AU) remains predominantly intergovernmental, with implementation heavily dependent on the decisions and capacities of member states. Much depends, therefore, on what happens with its ambitions towards trade and economic integration.

Recent History

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• The US and Africa
• Europe and Africa
• China and Africa
• India and Africa
• New Partners

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The US and Africa

During the Cold War, Africa’s relevance rose as Washington and Moscow competed for influence, but the collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989 diminished its strategic value. Until then, important states on the continent were courted with money and arms as part of the Cold War competition. Democracy and human rights considerations were generally trumped by loyalty, although sections within the development assistance community in some Western countries pushed back against this crude division.

After that, Africa’s oil exports and location in the US war against terrorism briefly elevated its status at different times. Violent political Islam spread from Afghanistan and Syria to North-West Africa and East Africa, primarily driven by the displacement effect of US military interventions in Asia and the Middle East, facilitated by state weakness, exclusion, local conflict, illicit economies, porous borders and ideological diffusion. The period coincided with a brief unipolar moment during which the US achieved peak power and influence in the absence of a rival.

Africa’s importance dissipated thereafter, allowing for a brief period during which development priorities rose in international prominence. That period culminated with the agreement on the Millennium Development Goals in 2000 and, in 2015, on the Sustainable Development Goals. However, the boom in hydraulic fracturing for oil and gas in the US that started in these years effectively ended its dependence on imported fossil fuels and, hence, its concerns about stability in the Middle East as well as in key African states such as Angola and Nigeria, and the support that the US had provided to oil-rich autocracies. However, for many subsequent years, the US was the largest provider of humanitarian relief and aid to Africa, particularly in the health sector, while efforts, such as the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), provided duty-free access to the US market.

Africa largely missed the extraordinary globalisation of US corporate investment since the 1990s: American outward foreign direct investment (FDI) expanded enormously worldwide. Africa captured only a small fraction of that expansion, typically less than 1% of US outward FDI stock. The decline in US interests in Africa is reflected in a steady decline in export value to the continent since 2014, coinciding with growing Chinese influence.

For the US, the long-run trend is best described as growth in the dollar value of US investment in Africa, but stagnation—and, more recently, relative decline—in Africa's importance within the US investment portfolio. There has also been a major change in what Americans invest in: from an overwhelmingly extractive model in the 1990s and 2000s toward a more diversified portfolio.

Over the last decade, US–Africa relations have shifted from a relationship dominated by aid, counterterrorism, health and governance toward one increasingly shaped by trade and investment, strategic infrastructure, critical minerals, technology and geopolitical competition. The change has occurred across three administrations—Obama, Trump I, Biden, and now Trump II—and has not been linear, though with considerable continuity.

At the beginning of the period, the principal pillars of US engagement remained initiatives established earlier: the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), Power Africa, the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), and, particularly, the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA).

AGOA remained the centrepiece of US–African trade policy, giving eligible sub-Saharan African countries duty-free access for more than 1 800 products in addition to thousands covered under the Generalized System of Preferences. Congress extended AGOA for ten years in 2015.

The Trump administration introduced an important change in emphasis with Prosper Africa, announced in 2018 and launched in 2019. Instead of establishing another conventional aid programme, it sought to coordinate 16 US government agencies to increase two-way trade and investment.

Another important institutional innovation was the creation in 2019 of the US International Development Finance Corporation (DFC), which replaced OPIC and gave Washington a much stronger development-finance instrument.

The Biden administration’s 2022 US Strategy Toward Sub-Saharan Africa emphasised African agency, democracy, economic opportunity, climate adaptation and energy transition, while explicitly recognising Africa's growing importance to global politics, including by hosting the December 2022 US–Africa Leaders Summit in Washington, DC, which was attended by 50 African delegations. The administration announced plans to commit at least US$55 billion to Africa over three years and placed trade, investment, infrastructure, energy, agribusiness and digital connectivity prominently on the agenda.

Prosper Africa survived the change of administration to President Trump and expanded. The objective remained to mobilise American private capital rather than to compete with China through state-financed lending. By 2024, the U.S. government reported that, since January 2021, Prosper Africa had helped close 1 695 deals worth US$63.5 billion across 41 African countries as the US sought to use relatively limited public resources  to reduce investment risk and mobilise much larger pools of private capital.

Its weakness is that private companies cannot simply be instructed to invest in Africa.

The Lobito Corridor may ultimately prove the most strategically significant US initiative in Africa of the decade. The project centres on the railway running from the Atlantic port of Lobito in Angola through the DRC copper belt, with a planned extension into Zambia. By late 2024, more than US$3 billion had been committed across interconnected investments in transport, agriculture, clean energy, health and digital access.

In recent years, critical minerals have moved towards the centre of the relationship (also for the EU discussed separately below) given that Africa possesses large shares of minerals essential for electric vehicles, batteries, defence technologies, electronics and renewable-energy systems, particularly in the DRC, which dominates global cobalt production and is a major copper producer and Zambia (copper). Other African countries possess graphite, manganese, lithium, rare earths and platinum-group metals. Washington consequently increasingly views Africa through a supply-chain security lens. In February 2026, for example, the DFC approved additional African investments explicitly linking critical minerals and energy projects to American supply-chain and national-security objectives.

The US has also recognised Africa's rapidly expanding digital economy and its strategic significance. Thus, the Biden administration launched Digital Transformation with Africa (DTA) at the 2022 summit. American companies have obvious comparative advantages in a field in which the US potentially has a stronger proposition than in conventional infrastructure.

Washington has also become more supportive of African economic integration.

The United States increasingly views Africa in the context of competition with China, Russia, and, to a lesser extent, Gulf powers and other emerging states, but has also gradually become more pragmatic, offering an alternative whose clearest manifestation is the Lobito Corridor.

Security remained a major component of US–Africa relations throughout the decade, but the record has become increasingly difficult following coups in Mali, Guinea, Burkina Faso, Niger, Gabon and Sudan during this broader period. The deterioration of relations with Niger was particularly consequential because the United States had developed an important drone and counterterrorism presence there. Following the 2023 coup, American forces eventually withdrew. Russia exploited this dissatisfaction, particularly in Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger.

Democracy and governance has become a source of tension with African governments sometimes regarded American democracy conditionality as inconsistent—particularly where Washington cooperated closely with strategically important authoritarian governments. Since 2025, the emphasis has become more explicitly transactional and linked to U.S. national interests.

Development assistance and traditional aid have become less central to the administration's conception of the relationship, while greater emphasis has been placed on commercial deals, American investment, critical minerals, energy, security and reciprocal economic benefits.

Trump II rejects much of the language of the previous administration, but Lobito, DFC investment, critical minerals and commercially driven engagement fit surprisingly well with the direction in which US–Africa policy was already moving. Washington also confronted an increasingly multipolar Africa in which governments facing American pressure could turn towards China, Russia, Türkiye or Gulf states.

The US Africa Command, AFRICOM, still hosts the most extensive network of recurring multinational exercises across Africa, including its regular African Lion exercise. The 2026 version was hosted by AFRICOM across Morocco, Ghana, Senegal and Tunisia, involving several thousand military and civilian personnel, even as British and French military engagement has declined.

The result has gradually been a more transactional American approach. US interest in Africa has, of course, declined significantly during Donald Trump's presidency, which, amongst others, closed USAID amidst a barrage of disparaging comments about Africans and their leaders.

Europe and Africa

Historically, European relations with Africa were heavily shaped by colonial legacies and subsequently by the Lomé and Cotonou frameworks, development cooperation and aid conditionality. Relations centred on development assistance, trade preferences and European political conditionality. Today, relations between Europe and Africa are being replaced by a more explicitly geopolitical relationship organised around investment, security, migration, energy, critical minerals and competition for influence.

The EU is the most important advocate of a rules-based system and its domestic policies evidence efforts to balance the power of the market, technology and government, reflected in antitrust activities, Internet privacy, membership in international organisations and ongoing (though declining) support for the pursuit of democracy and human rights. Its social-democratic or more egalitarian model of development, particularly that of the Nordic countries, stands in sharp contrast to free-market capitalism in the US and to the emphasis on collective vs individual rights in China.

The 2023 Samoa Agreement, provisionally applied since January 2024, replaced Cotonou as the principal legal framework between the EU and 79 African, Caribbean and Pacific states, including 48 African countries. It broadens cooperation well beyond development assistance to climate change, migration, security, human rights, investment and multilateral cooperation.

At the November 2025 EU–AU Summit in Luanda, marking 25 years of EU–AU relations, the two sides characterised the relationship as a strategic partnership encompassing prosperity, security, governance, migration and cooperation in multilateral institutions. Development assistance is increasingly being combined with investment, most prominently evident when, at the February 2022 EU–AU Summit, Europe announced the Africa–Europe Global Gateway Investment Package, intended to mobilise around €150 billion for Africa. Its priorities include renewable energy, transport infrastructure, digital connectivity, health, education and private-sector development. Consequently, institutions such as the European Investment Bank and European development finance institutions have become more important alongside traditional aid agencies. Trade relations are also gradually moving towards investment, industrialisation and value chains

A revealing example is the 2025 EU–South Africa summit, where the parties explicitly committed themselves to industrialisation and the beneficiation of critical minerals at source, to cooperation with local industries, and to decarbonisation. 

Trade agreements are also evolving, and Europe has also become more supportive of the AfCFTA. Long-term European interest is increasingly shifting from simply obtaining preferential access to individual African economies towards participating in African regional value chains and an integrated continental market.

Europe's search for diversified energy supplies has increased the strategic significance of countries such as Algeria, Egypt, Nigeria, Angola, Mozambique, Senegal and Mauritania. Simultaneously, the European Green Deal has increased Europe's longer-term interest in African renewable energy, green hydrogen and electricity interconnections.

Because Europe's energy transition requires cobalt, copper, lithium, graphite, manganese, rare earths and platinum-group metals and since Africa contains substantial reserves of several of these minerals, relationships with countries such as the DRC, Zambia, Namibia, Rwanda and South Africa increasingly have an economic-security dimension. African governments recognise this leverage and increasingly insist that minerals should be processed in Africa rather than simply exported, thus demanding local processing, industrialisation, technology transfer and value addition.

Migration may be the issue where European and African interests diverge most sharply. African migration has become a major domestic political issue, particularly in Mediterranean states. Consequently, EU relations with Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Mauritania and countries in the Sahel and Horn increasingly include migration management. From Europe's perspective this is understandable domestic politics, but from an African perspective it sometimes creates the impression that Europe increasingly sees Africa through a migration-control and security lens.

There is also a fundamental demographic contradiction emerging. Europe is ageing and will require workers; Africa has the world's youngest and fastest-growing labour force. The longer-term relationship will therefore probably have to move from simply preventing migration towards jointly managing legal mobility, skills partnerships and circular migration.

The inclusion of "migration and mobility" as one of four principal areas at the 2025 EU–AU Summit reflects precisely this unresolved tension.

The EU has sometimes struggled to reconcile the different approaches evident amongst its member states, such as France, Germany, Italy, Portugal and Spain, through "Team Europe", combining the Commission, member states, the EIB and European development institutions behind common projects.

In the meantime, Europe's position vis-à-vis Africa has weakened visibly. For many years, France in particular exercised extraordinary military and political influence in Francophone West and Central Africa. French forces intervened repeatedly, most recently through operations Serval and Barkhane in the Sahel. Military coups and political transformations in Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger, accompanied by intense anti-French sentiment, resulted in the withdrawal of French forces and a major reduction in European influence in the central Sahel, which was exploited by Russia—initially by the Wagner Group and subsequently by the Africa Corps. European security policy has therefore gradually moved away from large European counterterrorism deployments towards African-led security arrangements, training, financing, maritime security, peace operations and selective bilateral partnerships.

Despite growing competition, Europe retains significant advantages, including substantial foreign direct investment stocks, leading universities and research partnerships, technological leadership in many sectors, influential financial markets, reserve currencies such as the US dollar and the euro, extensive diplomatic networks and development finance and humanitarian assistance. Many African elites also continue to have strong educational, business and personal links with Europe. However, younger Africans are more transactional in their approach to external partners and express no preference for Western engagement versus that of China.

The response in the West to China’s growing influence in Africa, discussed next, has been alarmist, with recent efforts to counter the Belt and Road Initiative in Africa and elsewhere. In 2021, the Biden administration launched Build Back Better World (B3W) and the EU launched Global Gateway; in 2022, the G7 club announced its Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment (PGII) to mobilise US$600 billion in infrastructure projects over the next five years, with a particular focus on Africa. From a geopolitical perspective, B3W/PGII represents the G7's strategic response to China's growing influence in the Global South, though the enthusiasm has declined markedly during the second US presidency of Donald Trump.

China and Africa

In contrast to the decline in US interest, from the 1990s onwards, China’s relationship with Africa underwent significant changes as it grew in economic and political importance, becoming Africa’s largest individual-country merchandise trading partner since 2009. A booming China needed oil and metals, and eventually found an outlet for its sizable current account surplus, as well as work for its construction companies that had built its roads, railway lines, and ports, matching Africa’s need for investment and infrastructure.

Chinese customs data place China–Africa goods trade at approximately US$348 billion in 2025. The combined trade of the EU’s 27 member states is of a similar order, although the comparison depends on whether services are included and on the exchange rate used. The EU also retains a much larger cumulative stock of direct investment in Africa. The US has a much smaller trade relationship with Africa, about one-quarter the size of the EU's or China's, despite longstanding initiatives such as AGOA.

China is also Africa’s largest bilateral creditor (though as a group, Western private banks have a larger share), and it is a crucial source of infrastructure construction and investment. Trade and return on investment are now more critical for China, even as it continues to buy favours in Africa, such as building modern parliament buildings with grants in more than a dozen African countries, most recently in Zimbabwe and Cameroon.

Whereas the West provides aid, though amounts have sharply contracted recently, and, through various agencies, concessional loans, Chinese development finance generally takes the form of near-market-rate loans, much of it for infrastructure.

China’s hard-nosed practice is quite different from its benevolent ‘win-win’ rhetoric. Research on publicly available Chinese sovereign loan contracts identifies unusually extensive borrower-confidentiality clauses, lender-controlled revenue accounts and provisions intended to protect repayment priority. These practices can complicate debt transparency and restructuring. The available contract sample, however, is not comprehensive, and some risk-protection mechanisms also appear in commercial and other official lending. More than one newly elected African leader (such as President Hakainde Hichilema of Zambia) has found that the amounts his country owed to China were much higher than initially thought once so-called hidden debt was also counted, while others, such as Zimbabwe, appear to underreport the numbers.

China’s role in Africa is expanding beyond trade and loans. In addition to trade and finance, it now encompasses manufacturing and industrial investment, digital infrastructure, renewable energy, health cooperation, vocational training, peacekeeping, military cooperation, media and education, and the expansion of private-sector investment. A widely cited 2017 McKinsey study estimated that Chinese firms operating in Africa then accounted for about 12%—roughly one-eighth—of the continent's industrial production. China’s manufacturing footprint has expanded considerably since then, although no comparable continent-wide estimate has been produced since.

Chinese firms, particularly Huawei and ZTE, have also become major suppliers of telecommunications infrastructure across Africa. This gives China an important role in the continent’s digital transformation, while also generating debates about vendor dependence, cybersecurity, data governance and local technological capability.

China's military and security engagement on the continent is also growing and becoming a more important component of Beijing's Africa policy, though it remains much more modest than the US's. For example, in July 2024, Tanzania hosted the largest-ever Chinese military deployment to sub-Saharan Africa as part of Exercise Peace Unity 2024, which included troops from neighbouring Mozambique. 

India and Africa

India–Africa relations have deepened and broadened considerably over the last decade, but along a trajectory rather different from those of China–Africa and Europe–Africa relations. India's relationship with Africa has unusual historical foundations. It combines Indian Ocean trading connections, the substantial Indian diaspora in eastern and southern Africa, Gandhi's South African experience, anti-colonial solidarity and cooperation through the Non-Aligned Movement.

But the centre of gravity has shifted. Where the older relationship emphasised anti-colonialism, non-alignment and political solidarity, today's relationship is increasingly about trade, investment, energy, pharmaceuticals, infrastructure, technology, skills and strategic cooperation. India has emerged as a significant trade, investment, technology and development partner, while deliberately presenting the relationship as one of South–South cooperation, African agency and mutual development rather than donor–recipient relations.

The scale is now substantial, much of it led by India's private sector. According to India's Ministry of External Affairs, India was Africa's fourth-largest trading partner in FY2024/25, with bilateral trade of about US$82 billion, while cumulative Indian investment in Africa reached approximately US$80 billion between 1996 and 2025. The relationship remains partly an exchange of African commodities for Indian manufactured goods. Major partners are Nigeria, South Africa, Angola, Egypt, Algeria, Kenya, Morocco and Mozambique, with India's first trade agreement signed with Mauritius in 2021.

New Partners

In the last decade, Gulf states such as the  United Arab Emirates (UAE), Saudi Arabia, and Türkiye have moved from being secondary external partners in Africa to becoming important “middle powers” shaping investment, logistics, security and diplomacy, particularly in the Horn of Africa. Their rise is one of the more consequential changes in Africa’s external relations because these countries operate differently from the traditional Western powers and China.

The UAE has moved furthest and fastest. Its role is no longer mainly trade and finance through Dubai. Emirati firms and state-linked investors are building a network spanning ports, logistics corridors, mining, agriculture, renewable energy, telecoms and finance, often reinforced by political and security relationships. The Financial Times recently estimated the value of announced UAE projects in Africa at more than US$168 billion since 2017 and described the UAE as arguably the most consequential new external power to expand its African footprint over the past decade, as it increasingly occupies positions along the trade arteries connecting African production to the Gulf, Asia and Europe.

Saudi Arabia is following a somewhat different trajectory. Historically, its African influence rested heavily on religion, development finance and relations with Red Sea and Horn countries. Under its Vision 2030, this has become considerably more commercial and strategic. Riyadh is increasingly interested in agriculture and food security, mining and critical minerals, energy, ports and Red Sea security. Its engagement with Sudan, Ethiopia and Eritrea illustrates the link between securing economic resources and strengthening Saudi geopolitical influence across the Red Sea.

Qatar remains smaller economically but punches above its weight diplomatically. Its comparative advantage has been in mediation, elite political relationships, sovereign investment and aviation rather than in building the extensive commercial-security ecosystem pursued by Abu Dhabi. In several African conflicts and political disputes, Doha has used mediation as an instrument of influence.

Türkiye's rise is equally striking, but its model is different again. Ankara has constructed an unusually broad African presence combining trade, construction, airlines, diplomacy, humanitarian assistance, education and defence. Its diplomatic expansion is remarkable: Türkiye went from only 12 embassies in Africa in 2002 to around 44, while institutionalising relations through Türkiye–Africa summits.

The biggest recent change in Türkiye's role has been the shift from predominantly soft power to hard power. Turkish weapons have become important in several African militaries. Türkiye has supplied or supported forces in countries including Ethiopia, Somalia and several Sahel states. It also maintains Camp TURKSOM in Mogadishu, trains Somali forces and has become deeply involved in Somali security. A 2024 agreement made Türkiye a partner in Somali maritime security for 10 years, alongside its existing role in training troops, operating key infrastructure and supplying drones. Ankara has simultaneously tried to mediate between Somalia and Ethiopia, demonstrating how military involvement is now translating into diplomatic leverage.

African governments are no longer negotiating mainly with Washington, Brussels, Beijing, Paris and London. They can arbitrage among an increasingly diversified set of partners, now including the Gulf states, Türkiye and India. A more multipolar world, implicit in all four global futures scenarios, creates potentially the best external bargaining environment African states have faced in several decades. The reason is straightforward: the US, EU, China, Gulf states, Türkiye, India, Russia and others increasingly have to compete with one another for assets from and relations with Africa, such as critical minerals.

The distinction between commercial and geopolitical engagement is becoming blurred. The UAE, through DP World’s investment in ports, illustrates this particularly clearly. A commercial concession can simultaneously provide access to strategic maritime infrastructure, influence over supply chains and leverage over governments. The same is true of investments in critical minerals, telecommunications and agriculture.

These new transactional relations move more quickly and place less weight on governance conditions than traditional Western interactions. Though attractive to African governments facing infrastructure and financing constraints, their engagement also reduces transparency. It creates difficult sovereignty questions where investment relationships overlap with security partnerships or domestic political networks.

The UAE's role in Sudan demonstrates the downside particularly starkly. Abu Dhabi has been accused of supporting the Rapid Support Forces during Sudan's civil war, a claim the UAE rejects, while simultaneously being deeply connected to African gold and commercial networks. This has produced intense debate over whether Gulf economic interests are becoming entangled with conflict and political fragmentation.

For Africa, a new category of external actors has therefore emerged. The UAE, Saudi Arabia and Türkiye are increasingly combining state capital, commercial companies, diplomacy and security instruments into a single foreign-policy strategy. The emerging African external landscape is therefore increasingly a competitive multipolar marketplace, in which the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Türkiye—along with India and others—can sometimes move faster and accept risks that traditional Western investors will not.

African actors today are, therefore, able to shape outcomes less through raw material power or diplomatic numbers alone than through strategic aggregation: combining votes, markets, strategic assets, procurement decisions, security capabilities and access to territory into bargaining leverage. The shift is incomplete and uneven, but it is increasingly visible. The result is that Africa is moving slowly from being primarily a rule-taker and arena of external competition toward becoming, in selected areas, a coalition builder, market gatekeeper and strategic broker.

Taken together, these developments suggest that African agency is changing along three dimensions.

First, there is a shift from bilateral dependence to competitive multi-alignment. Governments increasingly have several external partners to choose from.

Second, there is a shift from resource ownership toward attempted value-chain control. DR Congo cobalt quotas, Zimbabwe's lithium beneficiation policies and tougher mining agreements in several countries all illustrate efforts to turn geological endowment into negotiating power.

Third, there is a shift from 54 separate markets and diplomatic voices toward continental aggregation through the AU, AfCFTA, African G20 participation and coordinated UN diplomacy.

Multipolarity creates options or potential, as measured by using the various indices assessed in this theme. Those options become bargaining power only when African governments can credibly withhold access, choose another partner, coordinate with neighbours or impose conditions on participation. The continent possesses enormous collective leverage—54 UN votes, 1.5 billion consumers, resources, strategic sea lanes, rapidly growing labour forces, peacekeeping capacity and expanding cultural influence. Yet external powers frequently gain the advantage because they can still negotiate on a country-by-country basis.

The central strategic challenge of the next decade is therefore to translate Africa’s collective weight into greater influence: through coordinated diplomacy in forums such as the G20 and A3 (three African countries serving on the UN Security Council), stronger bargaining power over strategic resources and trade, more sustainable financing for African peace operations and the combined market strength promised by the AfCFTA. The scenarios that follow explore how this agency could evolve under different global conditions. 

Scenario Logic and Modelling

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Africa’s future development and geo-strategic positioning is subsequently framed within the four global futures scenarios, which are presented in the Global Power Shifts theme. The framing uses two key dimensions that represent fundamental, highly uncertain forces shaping the international system, each with significant implications for development, geopolitics and environmental resilience (Chart 1). The extent of interconnected globalisation (vertical axis) versus nationalist populism captures the degree to which countries and regions remain interconnected through trade, technology and cooperation—or shift towards national priorities. The extent of mitigation (horizontal axis) prioritises equitable growth, environmental stewardship and long-term resource management over decreased mitigation and adaptation.

Scenarios are not predictions. They are tools that help frame alternative futures systematically and enable coherent discussion and analysis. Scenarios conducted using the traditional two-dimensional analysis—in this case, the extent of global fracturing versus efforts at sustainability—yield four divergent alternatives that support the associated modelling and conceptualisation. Reality is typically more complex. Done well, however, scenarios surface structural trends and the outcomes or effects of different pathways.

The four subsequent quadrants each represent a possible future based on how these uncertainties might unfold: a Sustainable World; a Growth World; a Divided World; and a World at War. Since they are illustrative, no scenario seeks to present the current real global trajectory, which would inevitably fall somewhere between the four stylised futures. However, it is currently closest to the Divided World scenario.

The accompanying theme on Global Power Shifts finds that, across measures and scenarios, the very top of the global power hierarchy is relatively stable. Here, the US and China lead an enduring bipolar world order, with India sitting in a third, potential kingmaker spot with enough power potential to tip the balance if it were to side fully with the US or China.

A combined EU has enough power potential to constitute a third pole in a multipolar world order, but this assumes its member countries act in unison. Also, at the country level, a few EU powers remain highly ranked, with France and Germany in the top ten across scenarios and indices. The same applies to the UK. Although Russia's power may stagnate or decline, depending on the scenario, it remains a top-ten global power.

The world order remains effectively bipolar, but with more power dispersed beyond China and the US, which, in the Global Power Shifts theme, was coined the move to a “mini-polar” world.

The defining feature of Africa's external relations is no longer Western predominance; rather, Western predominance is likely to become one component of a broader, more competitive international landscape. The question is whether strategic pluralism, in which African states engage multiple partners simultaneously to maximise economic opportunities, security cooperation and diplomatic flexibility, is a feasible strategy in a world that may force Africa to choose.

In a Sustainable World, governments prioritise sustainability and equity, but the road is long as the positive outcome is built by middle powers that straddle the North-South divide. For Africa, it assumes rapid and ambitious regional integration, progressing from an African continental free trade area, then a customs union and eventually a common market that allows the free movement of capital, labour and services across most countries. In this world, Africa progresses (as outlined in the Combined scenario and in other themes on the AFI website), marked by steady gains in productivity, accountability, democracy and stability. The Sustainable World maximises economic growth, achieving a 2050 African economy of more than US$17 trillion (compared to US$3.4 trillion in 2025), improves income and reduces poverty. However, it is the most difficult to attain given its focus on multilateralism, environmental sustainability and equity.

The Sustainable World produces stronger African growth than even the Growth World scenario because, among other factors, total fertility rates in Africa decline more rapidly, to the extent that the continent enters a potential demographic window of opportunity roughly a decade earlier than in the other three scenarios. Africa also gains from regional integration, better health, more and better education, improved governance, the provision of basic infrastructure and reduced conflict, which outweigh the Growth World’s advantages from faster global capital accumulation and corporate expansion. In more developed regions such as Europe and North America, the Growth World scenario generally leads to faster growth and larger economies. In contrast, the African economy is US$3.6 trillion smaller in the Growth World than in the Sustainable World.

A transactional approach to international relations characterises the Growth World scenario. Characteristics include lower taxation, weaker redistribution, deregulation, greater corporate concentration, high trade and capital mobility, limited climate policy and increased corporate concentration with little regard for the environment. This high-growth, more unequal world would see a rise in the power and influence of private capital and of rich countries, which actively support the growth of large firms. This is a future that follows a pragmatic arrangement between the US and China to entrench their respective advantages in technology and military power, and to pursue economic growth in a so-called G2 world.

A Divided World future is characterised by global fracturing, populism, nationalism and a retreat from globalisation—effectively, the fraying of the current rules-based system, with its complex lattice of norms and institutions. National and competitive interests dominate as bickering and beggar-thy-neighbour policies escalate, although there is some trade integration at the sub-regional level. Economic growth is tepid, and poverty reduction is slow. National politics is dominated by xenophobia and anti-migrant sentiments. By 2050, the size of the African economy is US$10.8 trillion, significantly smaller than in the Sustainable or Growth World scenarios.

The World at War scenario is one in which competition between the US and China dominates all aspects of the global economy, politics and relations, leading to violent outcomes. Rather than a single war, this is a story of successive conflicts, most likely originating in the Middle East. Shut out of prospects for more rapid development, the absolute number of extremely poor Africans is projected to reach 463 million by 2050, compared to 601 million in 2025. Autocracy spreads, and those African countries that avoid fracturing grow slowly, constrained by their small domestic markets and without the advantages of trade integration. The World at War scenario results in a much smaller African economy of US$9.6 trillion in 2050, which is half the size of the African economy in the Sustainable World.

Although Africa’s average military burden remains below the global average in most scenarios, many states lack the fiscal and institutional capacity to provide effective territorial security. The issue is therefore not expenditure alone, but the efficiency, accountability and legitimacy of security institutions. Inevitably, Africa will be more militarised in the Divided World, and especially in the World at War. In the World at War scenario, Africa’s military spending rises to 5.5% of GDP—more than triple the 2025 level. In the other scenarios, military spending shrinks to 1.3% of GDP (Growth World) and to 1.2% (Sustainable World), and modestly increases to 1.9% in the Divided World by 2050.

In a World at War, the democratic backslide of recent years, which came later to Africa than in many other regions, worsens, with the continent's 2025 average level of electoral democracy falling to its lowest level since the late Cold War—that is, the period before the democracy wave of the 1990s. A Divided World sees somewhat higher levels of participatory electoral democracy, with the present-day backslide persisting, but with Africa returning to its 2016 electoral peak as of 2047. In a Growth World, the democratic backslide reverses much more rapidly, with momentum such that electoral democracy in 2033 is higher than in 2016 and reaches levels higher than at any previous point in its independent history. Even more rapid democratisation is reflected in the Sustainable World scenario.

The key characteristics of the four scenarios in Africa are summarised in Chart 2.

Impact of Scenarios on Africa's Development Prospects

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• Economic size, income and poverty
• GDP per capita
• Basic infrastructure
• Energy and climate
• Security and military expenditure
• Governance and democracy

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Economic size, income and poverty

Largely because of its rapidly growing population, the African economy grows faster than comparable regions such as South Asia and South America across all scenarios.

Chart 3 compares Africa's outcomes across the four scenarios using economic size (GDP at market exchange rates, MER), GDP per capita at purchasing power parity (PPP), and extreme poverty at the US$3.00 threshold. The scenario forecasts run to 2050. The comparison highlights a central result that Africa's strongest development outcome occurs in the Sustainable World.

Africa grows most rapidly in the Sustainable World because deeper regional integration is combined with greater improvements in human capital, governance, infrastructure and stability. The scenario assumes an ambitious implementation of the AfCFTA, followed by deeper customs and market integration. These gains outweigh the Growth World's advantages from faster global capital accumulation. This mechanism is consistent with external evidence on the potential integration dividend. For example, World Bank modelling finds that full AfCFTA implementation could raise Africa's income by about 7% by 2035 and lift millions of people out of extreme poverty.

Ranked from largest to smallest, the 10 African countries with the largest economies in 2025 were Nigeria, Egypt, South Africa, Algeria, Morocco, Ethiopia, Kenya, Ghana, Côte d'Ivoire and Angola. By 2050, South Africa, Morocco and Algeria will move down the rankings but remain within the top 10. Angola drops out of the top 10 in all scenarios, as does Algeria, although the latter only drops out of the top 10 in the Sustainable World scenario. In all four scenarios, Ethiopia, Kenya, Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire move up within the top 10. The new entrants to the top 10 by 2050 are the DR Congo and Tanzania, with their burgeoning young populations, mineral wealth and growth potential.

In the process, Africa's economic centre of gravity shifts eastward and toward larger, younger, faster-growing population centres. At the same time, the continent’s established middle-income economies would remain important but become relatively less dominant. This is the emergence of a new continental balance in which Africa has several distinct economic poles rather than one or two dominant hubs: Nigeria in West Africa, Egypt in North Africa, South Africa in the south and an increasingly powerful East/Central African axis built around Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania and the DR Congo.

The changes would make Africa more economically multipolar internally—and potentially much more capable of collective bargaining externally.

GDP per capita

Chart 4 compares changes in average GDP per capita in PPP terms. In the Sustainable World, the continental average more than doubles from about US$6 135 in 2025 to US$12 640 by 2050. In today’s cross-country income distribution, this equates to moving the continental average 30 spots up in the global GDP per capita ranking (from approximately the level of Mauritania or the Republic of the Congo to Fiji or Belize). The increase is substantially smaller in the Growth World and even lower in the Divided World and the World at War.

Comparisons with the present-day income levels of individual countries can be useful illustrations. Still, they should not be interpreted as equivalent living standards because GDP per capita does not capture differences in inequality, public services, prices or non-income dimensions of welfare.

Numbers differ per country. Seychelles and Mauritius, Africa’s sole two high-income countries, retain their ranking at 1st and 2nd spot in all scenarios using GDP per capita (in PPP), followed, in 2050, by Egypt, which moves up from 5th spot, leaping over Gabon with its declining oil wealth and Botswana with its diamond-backed growth model, which is already running out of steam. Apart from Seychelles and Mauritius, the top 10 in 2050 include Djibouti, Libya, Cabo Verde, Gabon, Botswana, Equatorial Guinea, Ghana, Tunisia and Algeria. South Africa does not feature among the top 10 countries in 2050 in any scenario, such is the impact of poor governance, deindustrialisation and institutional collapse. In 2025, South Africa was ranked 8th. Tunisia, at the 10th spot, retains that ranking only in the Growth World scenario; it is not in the top 10 in any other scenario.

Individual country findings can be visualised in Chart 5, which presents the alternative outcomes for each African country across the four global scenarios.

Although their relative positions change, the 10 African countries with the lowest GDP per capita in 2025 were Liberia, Malawi, Madagascar, DR Congo, South Sudan, Mozambique, Somalia, Central African Republic, Eritrea, Burundi and the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic . The list does not change by 2050, except that the DR Congo improves more rapidly and exits the group, to be replaced by Sudan.

Coming from a much lower base, Africa’s average GDP per capita does not catch up with the averages of other developing regions, such as South America and South Asia, in any scenario, despite making huge strides in poverty reduction. Whereas the number of extremely poor Africans was 601 million in 2025 (39% of the total population), in a best-case Sustainable World, Africa would have only 207 million extremely poor people in 2050, or below 9%. If this were to occur, extreme poverty would cease to be the defining socioeconomic condition of the continent, with a large consumer and middle-income population that would drive internal consumption and urban demand. However, a larger, more economically secure population may become more demanding of state performance. Extreme poverty would be concentrated in a small number of fragile and conflict-affected settings.

The continental averages presented in Charts 4 and 5, therefore, conceal substantial variations, as the scenarios' impacts differ by country. The reasons for these shifts differ. For example, a World at War would affect hydrocarbon exporters, mineral exporters, food-importing states, tourism-dependent islands and conflict-affected Sahelian states differently than the Growth or Sustainable World.

Basic infrastructure

Human development indicators continue to improve across all four scenarios, but the pace differs markedly. In the World at War, average access to safely managed sanitation rises only slowly from the 2025 starting point, while gains are larger in the Sustainable and Growth Worlds. Even in the more favourable scenarios, Africa remains well below the global average by 2050. The implication is that aggregate GDP growth alone is insufficient: sustained public investment, effective local institutions and infrastructure delivery are necessary to translate growth into household welfare.

In the World at War, basic infrastructure provisions improves for many households, but not nearly as much as in the other, more optimistic future forecasts. For example, in this uncertain and unstable future, average access to safely managed sanitation in Africa increases from an average of 30% (lowest amongst global regions) by just over 12 percentage points from 2025 to 2050, compared to 20 and 17 percentage point increases in the Sustainable and Growth World scenarios. Even in a Sustainable or Growth World, the gap with 2050 global averages is more than 20 percentage points. While 71% of the global population has access to safely managed sanitation, the corresponding share for Africa in the most optimistic Sustainable World scenario is 50%, illustrating the challenges of catching up. In a Divided World scenario, safely managed access to sanitation in Africa increases to 45% by 2050, compared to an average of 68% worldwide.

Energy and climate

The pathways to the four worlds differ particularly sharply in energy and climate. In the Sustainable World, global fossil-fuel carbon dioxide emissions decline after peaking, whereas they remain substantially higher in the Growth World. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) stresses that climate risks increasingly compound and cascade across sectors, including food, water, health, infrastructure and economic activity. Africa is especially exposed because climate hazards interact with rapid urbanisation, infrastructure deficits, poverty and high dependence on climate-sensitive livelihoods.

Chart 6 presents carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions from fossil fuels for Africa. We examine these trends in a separate Climate theme.

In the theme on Energy, we draw on the work of Vaclav Smil and the Human Development Index (HDI), which posits that high human development outcomes are rarely achieved below approximately 8.62 barrels of oil equivalent (BOE) of energy use per person per annum, although energy efficiency and the composition of energy supply matter substantially. Africa suffers from acute energy poverty, as reflected in an average energy demand per capita of 3.5 BOE per person per year in 2025. In only six African countries does demand exceed the 8.62 BOE threshold, meaning most African countries need large amounts of energy for development. The IEA estimates that around 600 million Africans still lack access to electricity, underscoring the scale of the investment challenge.

Inevitably, rapid development will be accompanied by even more rapid increases in energy demand. Thus, Africa’s demand for fossil fuels and carbon emissions is projected to grow across all scenarios, given the continent’s rapidly growing population and the need for energy to fuel its development, much of which will still come from coal, oil and gas.

Energy demand in 2025 for Africa was equivalent to 5.4 billion BOE, and the continent accounted for less than 5% of the world's CO₂ emissions from fossil fuel use. Because Africa grows most rapidly in the Sustainable World, its energy demand increases most rapidly in this scenario. By 2050, it will have increased threefold to 3.1 billion BOE. However, because of a more rapid transition to renewables in this scenario, its 2050 carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel use are actually the lowest amongst the four scenarios. Important to note that the Sustainable World includes a provision for a global carbon tax, under which richer countries pay more per ton of carbon emitted than poorer countries, thereby assisting the transition to more renewables. As a result, Africa’s emissions from fossil fuel use increase more slowly than in the rapid growth of the Sustainable World would otherwise be expected.

If additional energy demand is met mainly through fossil fuels, Africa's carbon emissions will rise. In 2025, the continent accounted for less than 5% of global fossil-fuel CO₂ emissions. In the Sustainable World, its share will remain below 11% by 2050 even as energy use and incomes rise, reflecting faster deployment of lower-carbon energy and a global carbon price that helps finance the transition. This creates a dual policy challenge: expand energy access rapidly while avoiding long-lived, high-cost carbon lock-in.

Security and military expenditure

Africa becomes more militarised in the Divided World and especially in the World at War. Military spending will rise from 1.6% of GDP in 2025 to 1.9% in the Divided World and 5.5% in the World at War by 2050, while the share declines in the Growth and Sustainable Worlds. Military expenditure alone, however, is not a sufficient measure of security capacity. Outcomes also depend on professionalism, civilian oversight, legitimacy, intelligence, regional cooperation and the ability of states to provide security and justice efficiently.

Governance and democracy

Governance outcomes also diverge. In the World at War, the recent democratic backslide deepens, and the continental average of electoral democracy falls towards levels last seen before the democratisation wave of the 1990s. The Divided World produces a prolonged period of stagnation before partial recovery. The Growth World reverses the decline more quickly, while the Sustainable World delivers the strongest democratisation.

Chart 7 presents the average history of electoral democracy (or polyarchy) for Africa, using data from the Varieties of Democracy project (V-dem), with a forecast showing the scenario interventions.

Power and Influence Potential

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• The Global Power Index (GPI)
• The Diplomacy, Military, Economy (DiME) Index
• The Formal Bilateral Influence Capacity Index (FBIC)

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The theme on Global Power Shifts introduces three composite measures of national power and influence used in the International Futures (IFs) forecasting platform: the Global Power Index (GPI), the Diplomacy, Military, Economy (DiME) Index and the Formal Bilateral Influence Capacity (FBIC) Index.

The Global Power Index (GPI)

The Global Power Index (GPI) calculates a state's power potential as a percentage of the global total in any given year. Among the factors included in the calculations are economic size, technological sophistication and population size.

Chart 8 presents the power potential of the top 10 African countries in 2025 and 2050 for each scenario, with Nigeria and Egypt having significantly greater power potential than the others across all scenarios. These top 10 countries account for roughly 58% of Africa's power potential. The power potential of South Africa, Algeria, Morocco, Libya and Angola generally declines, while that of Ethiopia, DR Congo, Tanzania and Côte d’Ivoire increases.

It is also useful to consider how these countries rank globally. In 2025, Egypt ranked 39th out of 188 countries, followed by Nigeria in 40th, South Africa in 48th and Algeria in 50th.

Seen within a global comparative perspective, Nigeria is expected to enter the top 20 most powerful countries by 2050, doing so only in the Sustainable World scenario, with Egypt at 23rd place. Both drop several places in the other 3 scenarios, including in the Growth World. Nigeria’s high ranking is largely a function of its large population, which, in all scenarios, surpasses that of the US and makes it the third-largest globally. In 2025, Nigeria, Africa’s largest economy, accounted for less than 0.7% of the global economy. It doubles that to 1.4% by 2050 in all scenarios. Within Africa, Nigeria's economy accounts for 20.5% of the continent’s total in 2025, followed by Egypt at 14.5% and South Africa at 12.7%. These relative positions shift across the four scenarios, with Ethiopia likely to overtake Algeria (currently the fourth-largest) and even the size of South Africa’s economy by mid-century.

The Diplomacy, Military, Economy (DiME) Index

The DiME Index narrows the focus to the specific, practical levers of national statecraft. It groups capabilities into three functional pillars: Diplomatic networks (embassies, treaty participation), Military might (personnel, equipment, nuclear capabilities) and Economic base (market size, financial resources).

The six African countries with the greatest potential for influence using DiME across the forecast horizon are: Egypt, Nigeria, South Africa, Algeria, Morocco and Libya. All climb up the global influence ladder over time. For example, Egypt, the African country with the most influence, moves from the 41st spot in 2025 to the 35th or higher by 2050, but is overtaken by Nigeria, which moves from 44th to 24th position (in the Growth World) or higher. South Africa remains in the third-highest position among African countries across all scenarios by 2050, and its global ranking is unchanged. Nigeria would experience the largest improvement in its ranking, moving from the 44th spot in 2025 to the 24th in the Growth World scenario. However, it does not equally well in the other scenarios, where it remains at the 32nd position.

The analysis suggests the emergence of a more distinctly multipolar African order, with several regional powers capable of projecting influence beyond their immediate neighbourhoods. The crucial feature is their geography. Five of the six are concentrated at Africa's northern and southern extremities, while Nigeria anchors West Africa. Central and East Africa lack an equivalent heavyweight. Moreover, four of the six—Egypt, Morocco, Algeria and Libya—simultaneously belong to African, Mediterranean and Arab political orientations. Their growing influence, therefore, does not necessarily translate into stronger collective power in Africa. That diversity matters since there is no obvious African hegemon. Even Nigeria, which will increasingly dwarf the others demographically, does not possess South Africa's corporate reach, Egypt's strategic geography, Morocco's commercial diplomacy or Algeria's hydrocarbon and military resources.

The result of the geographic spread could be competitive regional leadership rather than continental dominance and/or encourage the same impetus towards multipolarity also evident globally, with smaller African countries becoming less simply followers of regional hegemons and potentially more capable of multi-alignment among African powers, or sharper competition between the six, already evident between Morocco and Algeria. Their rivalry over Western Sahara and competition for regional leadership and security have already inhibited Maghreb integration, particularly within the Arab Maghreb Union. If both become more capable internationally without resolving their political differences, the effect could actually intensify competition rather than increase African collective influence.

Egypt and Ethiopia illustrate another problem, even though Ethiopia is outside the top six. In addition to straddling Africa and the Middle East, Egypt's increased influence does not necessarily strengthen Africa collectively if it translates into more intense competition over the Nile and Horn of Africa.

Thus, greater African influence does not automatically mean greater African unity, as it depends on the leading states' use of their growing capabilities to build coalitions or compete for primacy, all of which makes the African Union (AU) more important as a forum for conflict resolution and management. The AU is therefore important internally to constrain and mediate competition among Africa's strongest states and externally to aggregate their capabilities into African negotiating power. Without the second function, external powers can simply cultivate different African powers separately.

For Washington, Beijing, Brussels, Moscow, Ankara and Riyadh, these six most influential African countries are becoming increasingly valuable gateway states. Each offers access to something different.

• Egypt offers access to the Suez, the Red Sea, the Arab world and northeast Africa.
• South Africa offers finance, mining, sophisticated corporations, Southern Africa, G20 and BRICS influence.
• Nigeria offers West Africa, hydrocarbons, cultural reach and eventually an enormous consumer market.
• Morocco offers Europe-Africa connectivity, finance, phosphates and expanding West African commercial networks.
• Algeria offers gas, Mediterranean access, military capability and access to the Sahel.
• Libya—assuming sustained political stabilisation—offers hydrocarbons, capital, Mediterranean access and a bridge into the Sahel.

External powers, therefore, have incentives to compete for relationships with these countries, which increases their bargaining power and their potential to act as brokers between Africa and others, but only if they pursue regional or pan-African rather than national interests. Among the six, Nigeria is potentially different because of sheer demographic scale. Nigeria, therefore, probably has the largest upside and largest execution risk among the six.

With its small population and large hydrocarbon resources, Libya benefits from its strategic Mediterranean location and proximity to Europe and the Sahel.

Eventually, Africa's future global influence may depend less on producing a single great power than on whether several medium powers learn to exercise power collectively.

The Formal Bilateral Influence Capacity Index (FBIC)

The FBIC Index in IFs quantifies bilateral relational power, i.e., the capacity for influence, between specific country pairs (dyads). It departs from the premise that interstate influence is driven by two intersecting dynamics: the absolute volume of interactions between two states and the relative dependence of one state on the other. By examining these relational dynamics across economic, political and security dimensions, the FBIC Index evaluates which side of a dyad can most credibly leverage its relationship to compel decisions that a dependent state might not have otherwise made.

According to the FBIC Index, Europe appears extraordinarily influential in Africa, which is perhaps not surprising given its colonial history. Chart 10 presents the FBIC calculation of the history and future influence capacity of the US, China, France, Germany, the UK, India, UAE, Russia and Türkiye on Africa from 1960 to 2050. French (and US) influence capacity in Africa peaked in 1985 and has declined since then, and this trend continues across all scenarios. Using FBIC, France still has more influence capacity in Africa than the US. At the same time, the latter is stagnant but gains the most influence in the Growth World scenario, given the US economy's more rapid growth there.

UK influence capacity peaked earlier, in 1981, and was overtaken by Russia; by 2025, it ranks below the UAE, Russia and Germany, with continued decline across all scenarios except the Growth World. Towards the end of the forecast horizon, Türkiye’s influence in Africa is larger than that of the UK.

Most revealing is the sharp decline in the influence of France (historically the Western country with the most influence in Africa), as well as the decline of the UK. According to the FBIC, French and US influence in Africa is now at roughly similar levels. Anti-French mobilisation intensified across parts of Francophone Africa during the 2020s. Military governments in Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger incorporated it into their political narratives. At the same time, demands to redefine relations with France also emerged through civil society, opposition movements and democratically elected governments, including Senegal.

Given its growing trade relations with Africa, it is perhaps not surprising that Chinese influence on Africa surpassed that of the US and France in 2007 and, in 2025, is larger than that of any other. Apart from China, India’s influence on Africa is expected to steadily increase to 2050, potentially overtaking that of France and the US in some scenarios.

It is evident that the flow of materials from Africa to China, along with Beijing's investments in infrastructure and trade with the continent, is altering Africa's external relationships. As a single country, China will become hugely influential in Africa during our forecast period. Its belief and advocacy of principles such as mutual respect, non-aggression, non-interference, equity and peaceful coexistence is popular in the Global South, meaning that China is likely to steadily close the soft power gap with the US and others. Afrobarometer's continent-wide comparative analysis of attitudes toward China, released in 2021, found that 63% of respondents across 34 African countries viewed China's economic and political influence positively, compared with 14% who viewed it negatively.

Towards the end of the forecast horizon, China has the same level of influence that France had in the 1980s across scenarios. Chart 11 ranks the 10 African countries where China had the most influence in 2025 and forecasts for each scenario in 2050, with the top five spots in that year including Djibouti (where China has its only overseas military base), Nigeria, Tanzania and Mauritania. In the case of the latter, fisheries, minerals, infrastructure and a remarkably durable political relationship with Beijing account for its high ranking. In both Djibouti and Mauritania, China's weight is magnified by the countries' small economies and limited number of alternative large-scale partners.

Note: High FBIC scores do not necessarily indicate the largest absolute economic relationship. Smaller states may rank highly in interactions with China relative to their overall external relationships, creating a high degree of dependence.

Today, the UAE’s trade, investment ambitions, arms transfers and diplomatic engagement in Africa far surpass that of the UK as measured by FBIC. Thus, a Financial Times report shows that, by some estimates, the UAE had become the largest source of capital to Africa by 2026. However, a substantial component is greenfield investment projects representing planned capital expenditure rather than completed investments. Much of it is channelled through the US$240bn International Holding Company (IHC), chaired by Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed al-Nahyan, the UAE’s national security adviser and brother to its de facto ruler, Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed al-Nahyan. Dubai has also attracted large inflows from African elites who have shifted their investments to real estate and commercial ventures in Dubai rather than London, Paris or Geneva.

Following a decline in Russian influence for much of the 1990s, Moscow has made a concerted effort to benefit from the waning support for the West in the Sahel by providing security and arms to several military governments in West Africa in the wake of its invasion of Ukraine, as well as seeking to rebuild relations with countries such as Tanzania and South Africa. With limited economic leverage, however, Russia's efforts to build its own influence and undermine Western countries' influence in Africa are constrained. With an economy the size of Brazil's, Russia lags significantly behind great powers such as the US, China, and even Germany. Russia’s longer-term influence is constrained by its limited economic weight, the fiscal and military costs of its external engagements, sanctions and uncertainty surrounding its future political and economic trajectory.

Africa’s Trade Futures

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• Africa’s total trade
• Africa’s total exports
• Africa’s total imports

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A previous section concluded that despite growing geopolitical competition over Africa, the continent still accounts for only around 1-2% of the global outward FDI portfolios of China, the EU and the US. Africa's challenge is consequently less about choosing between competing investors than about dramatically increasing its share of investment and trade from all investors.

Africa’s total trade

The bulk of Africa’s export basket consists of precious stones, crude oil, natural gas, minerals and metals. Its import composition consists of machinery, vehicles, pharmaceuticals, electronics and other refined products. Africa’s reliance on exporting raw materials means that much of the value added through processing and manufacturing takes place outside the continent, limiting domestic production, industrial employment, technology development and economic growth.

In 2025, Africa’s total trade (both exports and imports) amounted to almost US$1.3 trillion. This represented less than 3% of global trade, with its trade flows remaining predominantly extra-continental (which excludes intra-African trade). Intra-African trade remained very low compared with other regions of the world. A paltry 16.3% of Africa’s trade is internal (intra-African trade), compared to 62.6% for Asia and 66.5% for the EU in 2025.

Looking to 2050, Africa’s total trade increases in three of the four scenarios, but is 9 percentage points lower than the 2025 level in the World at War. Africa’s total trade doubles in the Divided World, increases more than threefold in the Sustainable World, and is more than fourfold larger in the 2050 Growth World forecast. Whereas total trade, as a percentage of GDP, was 56% in 2025 and remains at that level in the 2050 World at War forecast, it increases to 113% in 2050 in the Growth World. Because the ratio includes both exports and imports, total trade can exceed 100% of GDP, particularly in highly open economies and regions with cross-border value chains.

The future share of the EU, US, China and other partners in African trade will depend on their own economic growth, trade policy, enlargement and internal cohesion. These factors are held constant or treated exogenously in the present scenarios and represent an area for sensitivity analysis. The findings underscore the extent to which Africa’s future in trade will be dominated by its relations with China and the EU. However, trade with other regions, such as the Gulf countries, is also growing rapidly.

In all four scenarios, South and Central America remain relatively peripheral to Africa’s future in trade, despite a shared history of conquest and exploitation.

Africa’s exports

Africa’s export performance has remained low, stagnant and heavily skewed towards primary and commodity goods, despite efforts to expand market access through numerous external and internal trade agreements. The most significant external trade agreements have historically been with the EU, the US and China. These agreements provide African exporters with preferential access to the EU, the US and China, while requiring participating African economies to gradually liberalise their own markets. With the EU, trade agreements have progressively shifted from unilateral preferences towards reciprocal Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs).

The US has primarily provided preferential market access AGOA. Rather than a conventional reciprocal free-trade agreement, AGOA grants eligible sub-Saharan African countries preferential access to the US market across a wide range of products, subject to eligibility requirements. Although AGOA has supported export-oriented industries in some countries, particularly apparel and manufacturing, its benefits have been unevenly distributed, and African exports to the US remain concentrated among a relatively small number of economies and products.

Africa's trade relationship with China has developed differently. It has been built around bilateral economic cooperation, investment agreements and preferential market-access initiatives rather than a single continent-wide free-trade agreement. This relationship has expanded considerably alongside Chinese investment in African infrastructure and natural resources. Importantly, China has progressively widened duty-free treatment for African exports and, from May 2026, extended a non-reciprocal zero-tariff treatment to goods from the 53 African countries (excluding Eswatini) with which it maintains diplomatic relations. This could improve market access for African exporters, though whether it substantially changes the composition of exports will depend on African economies' ability to increase productive capacity and supply higher-value goods competitively.

In 2025, Africa’s total exports amounted to around US$934, representing only about 2.9% of world exports, highlighting the continent’s relatively small share of global trade value. The majority of African economies remain at the upstream end of the global value chain (GVC), supplying primary and commodity goods. This limits opportunities for industrial upgrading, productivity gains and economic diversification. The potential of downstream beneficiation of its natural resources is large.

Using IFs, Chart 12 presents the recent history and a forecast of the value of Africa’s exports to China, India, the EU and the US for each of the four scenarios. The value of African exports to the EU is much higher than that to China, although exports to China increase in all scenarios. In contrast, exports to the EU decline significantly in the World at War scenario. As in China, exports to India also increase in all four scenarios, while exports to the US trend lower than those to the others.

Africa’s imports

In contrast to its export structure, Africa’s import basket comprises a significant share of capital and intermediate goods that support domestic production, investment and economic development. Imports of machinery, equipment and industrial inputs can enhance productive capacity, facilitate infrastructure development and promote the transfer and adoption of technology. As such, a high level of imports is not inherently economically undesirable, particularly when imports are directed towards productivity-enhancing investment rather than solely final consumption. Imported capital goods and intermediate inputs can raise productivity, strengthen domestic industrial capacity and support structural transformation, ultimately improving Africa’s competitiveness and its ability to produce and export higher-value-added goods.

In 2025, Africa’s total imports were estimated at approximately US$1 trillion, exceeding exports and resulting in a trade deficit of around US$74 billion. The continent accounted for only 3.2% of global imports.

Chart 13 presents a history and forecast of Africa’s imports from China, India, the EU and the US in billion US$ for each scenario. Similar to the export profile, the value of exports from the EU is higher than that of China, but export growth from China and India to Africa is much higher than that from the EU. In fact, Chinese exports to Africa are rapidly overtaking those from the EU.

African Agency in a More Competitive World

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The four modelled scenarios should not be read as futures imposed on a passive continent. African governments, regional organisations, firms and civil society influence how external competition translates into development outcomes. Agency is strongest where countries have credible domestic institutions, access to regional markets and the capacity to compare competing offers rather than negotiate from a position of acute fiscal or security dependence.

The most important source of collective leverage is market integration. A larger, more predictable African market increases the value of market access for external partners and makes regional production networks more viable. This can shift negotiations away from isolated bilateral deals towards common standards on investment, competition, procurement, digital trade and infrastructure. World Bank, IMF and UNCTAD analyses all identify deeper AfCFTA implementation and lower non-tariff trade costs as central to raising incomes and resilience.

African agency also depends on strategic pluralism: maintaining workable relationships with multiple partners rather than treating external engagement as a binary choice between geopolitical blocs. Competition among China, the EU, the US, India, the Gulf states, Türkiye, and others can expand financing and technology options, but only when governments have the technical capacity to evaluate lifecycle costs, debt implications, local-content provisions, environmental standards and technology transfer. Otherwise, diversifying partners can reduce dependencies.

Coalition-building can increase influence in areas where individual African states have limited weight. Coordinated positions among leading countries and regional organisations can strengthen bargaining over trade rules, taxation, debt restructuring, climate finance, digital governance, strategic infrastructure and the terms attached to natural-resource investment. Critical minerals are particularly important geopolitically, although the four scenarios do not separately model individual mineral markets; the implications are therefore qualitative rather than additional quantified scenario outputs.

Finally, agency is not only external. The ability to convert demographic growth into power depends on education, health, productive employment, energy access, infrastructure and state capability. A separate theme underscores the scale of Africa's demographic expansion, but population size becomes a source of geopolitical influence only when people are healthy, skilled and productively employed. The policy challenge is therefore to turn demographic weight into productive and institutional capacity.

For Africa: Politics for Development

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• A no-regret strategy across all scenarios
• Priorities in cooperative scenarios
• Priorities in fragmented or conflict scenarios
• Implementation and external partnerships

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A no-regret strategy across all scenarios

Africa's power potential rises over the forecast horizon, but demographic weight alone is insufficient. The continent's labour force remains constrained by high dependency ratios in many countries, uneven education and health outcomes, low capital per worker and weak productivity. The priority is therefore to strengthen the domestic foundations of power: capable institutions, productive employment, reliable energy, human capital and competitive firms.

The first no-regret priority is to implement the AfCFTA more deeply and reduce non-tariff barriers. UNCTAD estimates that non-tariff frictions restrict African trade substantially more than tariffs and that transport and infrastructure gaps raise the cost of regional commerce. Practical measures include interoperable customs systems, risk-based border management, mutual recognition of standards, improved transport corridors, regional electricity trade, digital trade rules and easier cross-border payments.

Second, African governments should strengthen resilience to external financing and supply shocks. This includes prudent debt management, deeper domestic capital markets, local-currency financing where feasible, regional trade-finance facilities, strategic infrastructure maintenance and contingency planning for disruptions to food, fuel, shipping and payment systems. Diversification should apply to both financing sources and export markets.

Third, investment governance should be partner-neutral and transparent. Participating governments should apply a minimum set of project requirements to all external investors: publication of material contract terms, competitive procurement where appropriate, public consultation, environmental and social safeguards, beneficial ownership disclosure, credible dispute resolution mechanisms and transparent accounting of sovereign liabilities. AidData's research on Chinese loan contracts illustrates why comparable disclosure standards are important regardless of the creditor. 

Priorities in cooperative scenarios

In a Sustainable World and, to a lesser extent, a Growth World, African governments should exploit favourable external conditions to accelerate continental market integration, infrastructure investment and productivity-enhancing reforms. Priorities include scaling regional transport and energy networks, harmonising investment and competition rules, improving education and health systems, and using climate finance and development finance to crowd in private investment without weakening debt sustainability.

Cooperative scenarios also create more room for differentiated integration. Groups of willing states can move faster on customs cooperation, capital-market integration, common infrastructure standards or labour mobility while maintaining pathways for others to join later. Previous initiatives such as NEPAD and the African Peer Review Mechanism generated institutional and normative gains but fell short of their original ambitions; the lesson is to combine continental objectives with enforceable, practical implementation among coalitions able to move first.

Priorities in fragmented or conflict scenarios

In a Divided World or World at War, resilience becomes more important than maximising short-term trade efficiency. Governments should protect essential transport and energy corridors, build regional food and fuel contingency plans, strengthen cybersecurity and payment-system redundancy, and preserve fiscal space to withstand shocks. Regional markets serve as a buffer against disruptions in global markets, making AfCFTA implementation more important amid fragmentation.

Foreign policy should preserve strategic flexibility where core African interests are not directly at stake. Coordinated African positions will be most valuable where they concern shared material interests - including market access, debt restructuring, tax rules, technology standards, climate finance and the terms of investment in strategic sectors. Strategic pluralism is feasible only if countries avoid contractual or security dependencies that deprive them of the ability to switch partners.

Implementation and external partnerships

Larger and institutionally stronger African economies can help anchor regional investment by providing credible financial services, project preparation, dispute resolution and regulatory platforms for investments spanning several countries. Such hubs should be designed as transparent gateways to regional markets, with safeguards against treaty shopping, illicit financial flows and tax base erosion, rather than as opaque conduit jurisdictions.

External partners also have a role. The US, European countries and other providers of long-term capital can expand political-risk insurance, partial credit guarantees, currency-risk facilities, project-preparation funding, local-currency lending and blended-finance structures. These instruments should mobilise genuinely additional investment while maintaining clear risk-sharing and avoiding arrangements in which public institutions absorb losses without corresponding public benefits.

Regardless of the scenario, Africa's strongest long-term strategy is to increase the value of intra-African cooperation. Deeper economic integration, stronger institutions and sustained productivity growth would give African states greater capacity to shape external relationships rather than simply adapt to them. The objective is not strategic isolation, but greater choice: enough domestic and regional capability to engage China, Europe, the US, India, the Gulf states and other partners on terms that advance African development.