Category: Key developments

The African Development Bank Group has approved a one-year financing framework of up to $5.1 billion to help African countries manage rising energy and fertilizer costs, protect critical imports, and reduce their exposure to future supply shocks.

African electric mobility company Spiro has entered a strategic partnership with Chinese electric two-wheeler manufacturer Yadea to supply and develop electric motorcycles for Spiro’s operations across seven African markets.

Africa is on course to install a record 17 gigawatts of solar capacity in 2026, representing a 45% increase from 2025 and the continent’s third consecutive year of record growth, according to new analysis by energy think tank Ember and the African Tech Futures Lab.

The African Development Bank and AXIAN Group have launched a digital financial inclusion program designed to expand access to finance and business support for 34,000 women-led micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises in Madagascar, Tanzania, and Senegal.

Vodafone Business and Cassava Technologies have partnered to develop Egypt’s first sovereign AI factory, giving government agencies and businesses access to locally hosted NVIDIA-powered computing infrastructure for artificial intelligence applications.

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.