Africa in 2026

The 11 trends/factors that will shape African affairs in 2026

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I: Economics

(1) African economies will register strong nominal growth in 2026. But many countries in the region will struggle to convert that growth into noticeable human development (including through the creation of reliable jobs).

For the first time in recent history, in 2026 African growth will outpace Asia’s. The difference won’t be by much, 4.4% vs. 4.1%; and it will be driven by commodities (especially metals). But it’s noteworthy that after the COVID hiatus, African economies are back to extending the more than 25 years of successive expansion registered before COVID. That is a good thing.

Source: African Development Bank

Growth, and the related positive vibes (and we all know vibes matter a lot when it comes to Africa), mean that even economies that have been struggling lately can have some breathing room. Buoyed by gold prices, Ghana’s cedi saw its first annual gain against the dollar since at least 1994; with the country now able to attract foreign creditors again after its recent default. The same is true for Ethiopia — which looks set to come out of its default and continue with its macro reforms. Even Zambia, which plans to triple copper output in six years, is finally shedding the stigma of default (although it still faces significant economic headwinds — see below).

Growth means that African economies’ ability to sustainably rollover debt is improving. Source: African Development Bank

While I would prefer to see the region’s economies get closer to 12% annual growth that translates into job creation and broad-based human development, any and all growth is welcome at this point. Growth — especially in difficult times and places — is what will focus minds on more material expansion as not only a possibility, but a necessary inevitability. Growth will then beget the modernizing cultures of growth and progress that the Continent desperately needs at this point in its history.

Source: Our World in Data

Notably, economic growth will also translate into ever increasing per capita incomes.

Now, it is true that Africa is quickly becoming the last region with entrenched endemic poverty. However, this outcome is not preordained. Human agency can prevent it from becoming a reality. And that process starts with sustained growth, especially in difficult times like these. In addition, slowing population growth in the region (largely on the back of higher education attainment for girls, urbanization, and ongoing transition from agriculture) will mechanically result in rising per capita incomes. Income inequality will still be a problem, for sure. But it’s undeniable that rising median ages and lower dependency ratios will result in marginally better human development indicators.

Notice that the rate of economic growth will continue to outpace population growth.

It’s always worth remembering that while Africa’s population is still growing faster than in other world regions, peak growth was in the 1980s. And since the mid 2010s growth rates have been on a steady decline. Source: Worldometer

(2) Failure to effectively manage scarce natural resources will continue to exact high costs on African economies in 2026. Gold smuggling as well as policy missteps in the metals and agricultural commodity sectors will depress government revenue windfalls in a likely bumper year.

An often-ignored fact in African economic history is the awful timing of the post-independence commodity cycles.

As Thandika Mkandawire observed, there was very little that (admittedly flawed) African policymakers could do to influence these external factors. However, the inability to game commodity cycles didn’t also mean total lack of control over policy related to commodities. That’s where policymakers failed. Their preferred models of resource exploitation created enclave sectors with minimal developmental impact. Property rights never developed to support domestic private investments in the sector. Value addition was rarely considered. Profits mostly accrued to foreigners with no intention of reinvesting in African economies. Importantly, planning was poor and governments spent like prices would never crash — a weakness that persists to this day. For example, poor policymaking meant that Nigeria missed out on the last oil boom.

This flaw is particularly costly if one understands that, in relative terms, Africa is not that mineral rich. Back in 2023 I argued that Africa’s accessible resource wealth tends to be vastly overstated:

It is important to put African state’s natural resource wealth in global perspective. Despite having almost 17% of the world’s population, in 2019 Africa accounted for a mere 5.5% of global mineral output. As shown below, Africa’s share of global mineral output peaked in 2005. Part of the reason is historical under-investment in prospecting and development, as well as transfer pricing by tax dodging foreign firms. In 2019 only two Africans countries (South Africa, 8; Nigeria 17) appeared in the top 20 global mineral producers by value.

Source: An Africanist Perspective

….. it doesn’t matter what is in the ground. In order to realize the value of the continent’s resource potential it has to be extracted, sold on the global market at a fair price, and the taxes/royalties accrued by public authorities invested in improving human welfare.

More people should be aware of this fact. Delusions of unlimited African riches that are being stolen by the corrupt elites and their foreign allies is copium that limits the region’s leading minds from honestly assessing the Continent’s resource sector. It also robs African private investors of the legitimacy to invest in and create wealth from the region’s resources. To reiterate, the resulting dominant model of public ownership unnecessarily empowers foreign firms and reinforces the enclaving of Africa’s resource sector.

Which is why I was glad to see this recent excellent piece by Bright Simons injecting sobriety into the “critical minerals” discourse:

For decades, a stubborn statistic has haunted conversations about Africa’s wealth and poverty: the claim that the continent holds 30% of the world’s mineral reserves. It is repeated so often that even UN agencies and major development banks cite it as gospel…. The figure is irresistible because it flatters both ends of the ideological spectrum. Pan-African optimists see it as proof that the continent is on the cusp of global power, if only it would “leverage” its buried treasure. Neo-pessimists, including some in Western think-tank circuits, see it as the ultimate indictment: how could a region so rich remain so poor?

When “critical minerals” entered the global lexicon, the old myth received a fresh coat of varnish. Suddenly, Africa was said to possess “30% of the world’s critical minerals”. Now that “rare earth minerals” are highly sought after, Africa’s 30% sauce has come in handy, yet again.

In reality…

Africa holds under 2% of rare-earth output and patchy projects won’t change that soon. The prize is nearer home: steel inputs, cement additives and battery precursors to power factories, not slogans.

In short, the Continent is not that mineral rich in relative terms. Granted, this situation could change with more prospecting and commercialization, but we are simply not there yet. Consequently, it is vital that whatever is currently being produced should be properly managed.

Yet what we see is an almost uniform lack of official strategic thinking about Africa’s resource sector. For example, as gold prices surged, policymakers let smuggling boom. Ghana saw $11.4b worth of gold disappear between 2019-2023. Madagascar, an economy that desperately needs all the revenue income it can get, recently lost almost $3b in smuggled gold. The same lack of strategic thinking is evident in the critical minerals sector. Here, it is worth quoting Simons at length:

Africa’s mineral landscape is not a geopolitical prize waiting to be seized; it is a patchwork of small producers and half-built processing dreams punctuated by the occasional grandeur. Projects stall because of unreliable power, opaque licensing and financing structures that pledge future output to foreign offtakers without any strategic game plan.

…. For example, it is not all that relevant to define Africa’s policy direction based on what other regions, like the US, have defined as “critical minerals”. Africa must rethink what “critical” actually means from its own development calculus. A mineral is “critical” only relative to a society’s productive priorities.

For Africa, the truly critical resources are those feeding industrialisation: steel inputs, cement additives, battery precursors and fertiliser minerals. Cobalt and platinum matter, but iron, copper, tin, bauxite, phosphate and manganese, the feedstock of everyday development, matter far more.

For suggestions on how African countries ought to exploit their natural resource wealth see here, here, and here.

It would be a shame if at the end of this cycle the economies of Ghana, Mali, Ethiopia, the DRC, Zambia, South Africa and others did not show visible signs of benefitting from the current boom.

(3) Policymakers in a number of countries — like Kenya, Ethiopia, Benin, Cote d’Ivoire, Rwanda, and Tanzania — will deepen their embrace of transformational economic growth as the goal; and remain open to learning from each other.

In this regard, Kenya is a good example to watch this year. The country is in the midst of an interesting experiment in public debt management. Faced with a shrinking fiscal space, the government has embarked on an ambitious drive to crowd in private investments into infrastructure projects. This includes securitization of future revenue flows to raise debt, public private partnerships, strategic privation, debt-for-debt swaps, and the like. This process is messy and bedeviled by the standard political economy challenges of opacity and elite-level distributive politics. But it is a bold step in the right direction. Policy that figures out how to grow during bad times and under imperfect administrations should be celebrated and improved upon.

(4) Keeping with the theme of growing during hard times and in difficult contexts, Nigeria is projected to grow by at least 4.3% in 2026, with consumer demand rising by over 7%.

Tinubu’s strong medicine may have nearly killed the patient, but after two painful years Nigerians seem poised to get relief from improving macro conditions. The Naira will remain stable (despite downward pressure on oil prices), with inflation projected to decline to under 14% — down from over 20% in 2025. Also, by now we can conclude that Dangote Refinery’s $20b bet on the Nigerian economy is a success. He appears to be winning the war against the entrenched interests that for decades fed at the trough of crude exports, imports of refined products, and fuel subsidies. The impact of the refinery will be felt in the further stabilization of fuel prices in 2026.

Nigeria’s reform momentum will slow down ahead of the 2027 elections. It’s not yet clear whether the reforms knocked the economy into a growth path, or if the projected growth is just recovery from the initial steep contraction after Tinubu took office.

(5) South Africa, too, will grow in 2026 despite tariff and political pressure from Washington. The GNU is holding; and Pretoria has weathered geopolitical storms (including the rift with Trump’s America) much better than I anticipated.

After years of stagnation, there is an emerging consensus that South Africa will see improvements in its growth rate over the next three years (averaging 1.7%). The reform momentum will continue, including in the power sector and entrenchment of the rule of law. Local elections later this year, including the big one in Johannesburg, will likely put further pressure on the ANC to improve service delivery and overall quality of policymaking.

(6) After decades of under-investment in education, in 2026 quality of human capital will continue to constrain African economies’ ability to benefit from ongoing reorganization of the global economy.

Tyler Cowen recently argued that two things really matter for economic performance: (1) the stock of active and ambitious talent; and (2) the ability to match what’s demanded in the (global) market.

This framing speaks directly to Africa’s current predicament. The disinvestment in higher education in the 1970s and 1980s was a disaster. I would argue that it partially contributed to under-investment in basic education and overall economic stagnation in the region. And so African economies find themselves lacking the levels of high-quality human capital needed to capitalize on emerging patterns of global demand. To compound matters, most leading approaches to “education reforms” are palliative at best. To put it mildly, the Continent’s capacity for producing world class human capital at scale remains terribly constrained.

II: Security, elections and geopolitics

(7) Conflicts and generalized insecurity in the Sahel and coastal West Africa will continue to dominate the news. Relatedly, we should expect more (attempted) coup incidences in 2026.

As I previously noted, the “Sahel now accounts for half of global terror deaths.” That trend will most likely continue in 2026, with jihadist violence spreading to parts of coastal states — including Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, Benin, and Nigeria. Ominously, historical state weakness will force many of these states to externalize their security problems in a manner that will worsen their future outlook.

Yes, most of the terrorists will have to be defeated on the battlefield. But ultimately lasting peace will come at the end of political settlements that cannot be achieved via bombs from afar. I expect the interaction between rising insecurity and public discontent to increase coup risk across Central and West Africa — with Chad, Mali, Burkina Faso, the Central African Republic, and Niger topping the coup risk tables in that order. We should also not overlook the fact that both Nigeria and Benin experienced coup attempts in 2025. Remember, coups beget coups.

(8) Conflicts in Sudan, Ethiopia, and Somalia will rage on, fueled by Red Sea geopolitical competition.

In Sudan, as many as 60,000 may have been killed when El Fashir fell to the RSF last year. The Sudanese civil war will rage on in 2026 as there are no signs that the main backers of the belligerents are ready to force a truce. In Ethiopia, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s administration will continue to falter in its efforts to pacify the country. While not threatening the capital or important economic networks and assets, the conflicts will nonetheless exact a heavy toll on civilians. According to ACLED, about 16% of Ethiopians (21m) remain directly exposed to violence. In the last year, 6,300 people were killed. Finally, Somalia will continue to lose ground to a resurgent Al Shabaab. As a result, the government in Mogadishu will struggle to shore up its legitimacy — especially if momentum builds on the formal recognition of Somaliland.

(9) The most important elections in 2026 will be held in Uganda (January), Benin (April), Ethiopia (June), and Zambia (August).

In Uganda, Yoweri Museveni will extend his 40-year rule. That said, speculation about the Museveni succession will continue beyond the elections. Given the potential scenarios, the best possible outcome for Uganda would be for Museveni to step down and stick around to help his successor consolidate authority. A transition occasioned by Museveni’s demise would likely be the most chaotic.

In Benin, President Patrice Talon will leave office after the April election. All else equal, this will be good news for Benin’s political development (especially after Talon survived a coup attempt last year). Zambia’s Hakainde Hichilema will face a tough reelection battle. Load shedding means lots of Zambians are only getting 3 hours of power per day. The projected strong growth in 2026 (around 6%) may not be enough to save Hichilema, especially if the opposition is able to rally around a strong candidate. Attempts to tilt the scale via constitutional amendments may yet backfire.

(10) More countries will recognize Somaliland in 2026. While I expect Red Sea geopolitical competition to heat up as a result, there is little possibility of all out interstate wars in the wider Eastern Africa region.

I had Ethiopia and the UAE being the first countries to recognize Somaliland. Instead, Israel came out first. Tel Aviv’s move was partially motivated by the need for an outpost on the all-important Red Sea shipping corridor; and a broader revisionist posture with regard to MENA geopolitics. Its recognition, though, has established facts on the ground that states on the Continent have to contend with. The African Union was swift in its condemnation of the move. However, I expect countries like Ethiopia, Kenya, and others to quietly move towards de facto recognition even if they stop short of formalization. I remain skeptical that Hargeisa will be able to effectively manage the coming distortions to its domestic politics and economy.

(11) Overall, in 2026 African countries will struggle to navigate a world without “organized hypocrisy” around international law and related norms.

The first three posts of this Substack addressed the topic of African foreign policy under multipolarity. Yet I’ll be first to admit that I did not anticipate the scale and rapidity with which the “organized hypocrisy” that somewhat ordered international affairs lost its legs.

A disorganized world with competing major and middle powers that have no time for norms or international law will be a dangerous world for the geopolitically naive — which defines much of Africa. So we should expect more foreign-funded proxy wars and coup attempts, rapacious pillaging of natural resources, lopsided trade and aid deals, balkanization within the Continent, and increased capital flight.

Here, too, nothing is preordained. There’s scope for learning, especially among the countries that are focused on figuring out how to grow during these hard times.

Happy New Year!