Category: Key developments

The U.S. House of Representatives has approved a short-term government funding bill that would extend the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) through December 31, 2028, preserving duty-free access to the U.S. market for eligible sub-Saharan African countries for a further two years.

US$533 billion is the estimated annual value of public procurement across Africa in 2025. The estimate applies the World Bank’s 17% Africa-wide public procurement benchmark to US$3.14 trillion of aggregate nominal GDP across 54 African economies in the IMF’s April 2026 World Economic Outlook database.

Airtel Africa and SpaceX’s Starlink have launched Africa’s first commercial satellite-to-phone service in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, enabling eligible Airtel customers to send messages from areas without terrestrial mobile coverage.

AFC Capital Partners has launched the Infrastructure Climate-Resilient Fund Nigeria to mobilize capital from Nigerian institutional investors for climate-resilient infrastructure projects in Nigeria and other African markets.

Egypt’s National Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (NTRA), Telecom Egypt, and Huawei have completed Africa’s first trial of mobile services using the upper 6 GHz band, achieving data speeds of approximately 1.7 gigabits per second for each user.

African startups and growth companies raised $224 million in July, lifting total funding for the first seven months of 2026 to $1.66 billion.

Africa50, the Tanzania Petroleum Development Corporation (TPDC) and TAQA Arabia have signed an agreement to invest in, develop and operate the first phase of a small-scale liquefied natural gas project in Tanzania.

British International Investment (BII) and Africa50 have signed a memorandum of understanding to expand joint infrastructure investment across Africa, with the UK development finance institution committing $20 million to the Africa50 Infrastructure Acceleration Fund.

Explore how AI, digital payments and AfCFTA are shaping the future of agentic payments in Africa, and why the continent is poised for autonomous commerce.