Investor confidence is returning to sub-Saharan Africa. Despite global shocks and international volatility – largely caused by the Trump administration slashing USAid, imposing absurdly high tariffs, and ending the African Growth and Opportunity Act (Agoa), sub-Saharan Africa’s economies are showing resilience, with some set to post the highest growth rates in the world in 2026.

While growth rates are nowhere near the dizzy highs of sustained 6% to7% averages the continent saw before the Covid-19 pandemic, average growth of 4.1% in 2025 is set to rise to 4.4% in 2026. Benin, Côte d’Ivoire, Ethiopia, Rwanda and Uganda are expected to be among the world’s fastest-growing countries. The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank continue to include Africa’s northernmost countries in a separate grouping, Middle East and North Africa, which expects overall growth of 3.7%, with Egypt and Morocco punching above this average with 4.5% and 4.2% respectively.

Underlying this cautiously optimistic trend is continued demand for Africa’s metals, minerals and soft commodities. With gold hitting $4 000/oz for the first time in October, the frenzied activity seen around gold mining – both legal and illicit – will continue. While the gold price reflects global uncertainty and instability – which will last until at least US mid-terms in November 2026 – the global energy transition continues to underpin demand for copper: 25-million tonnes in 2020, projected to rise to 42-million tonnes by 2035.

Demand for transition minerals and rare earths in 2026 and beyond is the main driver behind major rail, port and energy infrastructure developments in Zambia, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Angola and Tanzania. These will again be the focus of Africa’s government development agencies for 2026. So it was at the Africa Investment Forum (AIF) investor event in Rabat, Morocco. at the end of November. The AIF – a comparatively new initiative led by the African Development Bank, Afreximbank and other African development finance institution partners – aims to develop a secure pipeline of pre-vetted investor-ready “bankable” projects. In three days of focused ‘boardrooms’, the forum secured $15.3-billion in investment against 41 projects presented.

This year saw several mega-projects come into being, underpinning long-term prospects for future growth. In September, Ethiopia opened its $4.5-billion Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, which will generate over 5 000 MW of electricity and see the country become self-sufficient in green energy and an exporter of energy, mainly to Sudan and South Sudan. On the other side of the continent, Guinea reached a significant milestone on November 11, exporting the first 9 000 t of high-grade iron-ore from the $20-billion Simandou mine and rail project, which aims to produce 120-million tonnes of high-grade iron-ore a year and includes a 650 km railway and a new deep-water port, making Guinea a top iron-ore exporter.

Projects that secured investor interest include Ethiopia’s next megaproject: State-owned Ethiopian Airlines Group’s Bishoftu International Airport, which will transform the country into a global aviation hub, with yearly capacity for 110-million passengers; the privately owned $1.5-billion, 1 150 km Lauca–Kolwezi transmission line linking Angola’s Lauca plant to the mining hub of Kolwezi in the DRC; and further financing for the Lobito Corridor.

Yet 2026 will test Africa’s political resilience with the risk of increased instability in key regions, notably West Africa and the Horn of Africa. The coup d’état in Guinea-Bissau brings to nine the number of military takeovers since 2020. The most belligerent of the coup juntas – the Alliance of Sahelian States (AES) – are at significant risk of implosion as these landlocked countries suffer from a trade blockade imposed by Islamist extremist militias.

The AES junta leaders pivoted in vain to Russia for military support to secure their countries against secessionist rebels and criminal gangs that, roaming unchecked, pose a significant risk to neighbouring countries, notably Chad, Côte d’Ivoire, Cameroon and Nigeria. By early 2026, two of the juntas – Guinea and Gabon – will have transitioned by elections back to civilian rule (but usually with the military junta leader securing the Presidency).

Important elections will also take place in Algeria, Ethiopia, Morocco, Uganda and Zambia. As witnessed in 2025, elections are flint to Gen Z’s fire, prompting protests that this year led to a military coup in Madagascar and a brutal clampdown in Tanzania.

Morocco’s and Algeria’s legislative elections could rekindle Gen Z protests. In Uganda, an ageing President Yoweri Museveni, in power for 40 years, will face an electorate with a median age of 19 – many of them first-time voters.

Of these, probably the most important are Zambia’s Presidential elections, where Hakainde Hichilema is standing for a second term. His administration has successfully turned the economy around, securing a debt deal and a ratings upgrade. But he faces the brunt of the late Edgar Lungu’s populist opposition, which is already threatening to increase taxes on mining companies.

Perhaps 2026’s most important election – even for Africa – will be the US mid-terms, which will test the US Constitution, see whether the electorate will check Donald Trump’s excesses or whether US power is manifest in continued chaos, uncertainty and unreliability.