World
AfDB Mobilizes Funds for Projects Via Integrated Platforms
By Kester Kenn Klomegah
The African Development Bank (AfDB), which sets its primary tasks of contributing to the continent’s economic and social development by providing the necessary concessional funding for projects and programmes, as well as offering and coordinating assistance in capacity-building activities, has now embarked on various post-COVID-19 initiatives throughout the continent, especially in the least developed African countries.
In the latest was the mid-March event where potential investors have examined more than $50 billion of curated bankable projects in key priority sectors identified in the Africa Investment Forum’s 2020 Unified Response to COVID-19 initiative.
The sectors include agriculture and agro-processing; education; energy and climate; healthcare; minerals and mining; information and communications technology and telecommunication; and industrialization and trade. Nine of these projects are women-led, with a potential value of $5 billion.
The AfDB has secured $32.8 billion in investment commitments for projects in Africa. The largest deal secured at the three-day Africa Investment Forum was $15.6 billion for the Lagos-Abidjan mega highway of about 1,200 km (745 miles) will have four to six lanes, connecting West Africa’s two major cities in Nigeria and Ivory Coast, said AfDB President, Mr Akinwumi Adesina.
“Africa is a very bankable continent. We’ve gone through hard times because of the Covid-19 situation but here we are on a rebound,” said Adesina. “Africa is back for investments.” The projects, part of the bank’s Covid-19 response, touch on sectors including agriculture and agro-processing, education, energy and climate, healthcare, minerals and mining, and information and communications technology.
Adesina said that on the health side, projects include a new medical city in Accra, Ghana, a fund for health services for low-income populations in South Africa, and two platforms for manufacturing pharmaceutical products: one in West Africa and one in Kenya.
The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), launched under the African Union, provides unique and valuable access to an integrated African market of over 1.3 billion people. In practical reality, it aims at creating a continental market for goods and services, with free movement of business people and investments in Africa.
The bank together with health giants has also set eyes on capitalizing on the advantages and conditions to push for healthcare issues. It, as well, is expected to advance the integration of African markets and standards for pharmaceuticals and other goods.
As a result, the Africa Investment Forum is curating several investment-ready transactions that align closely with the three healthcare pillars outlined by the AfDB President.
The investor boardroom sessions feature a $49 million transaction involving the construction of a pharmaceutical and biomedical hub in West Africa. The hub will incorporate a logistics platform, research and development facilities and an academic institution that could serve the region and the wider continent in vaccine manufacturing and drug and medical development.
A second vaccine-related transaction is a $45 million production plant in East Africa, which the World Health Organization (WHO) has pre-qualified. The plant will routinely produce three vaccines, including one for COVID-19.
It was no surprise that the WHO recently announced that Kenya, Senegal, Tunisia, South Africa, Egypt and Nigeria would be the first participants in its mRNA technology transfer hub initiative. The initiative paves the way for the manufacture and licensing of a range of pharmaceuticals in these six countries. It is likely to trigger strong investor interest in Africa’s burgeoning pharmaceutical sector.
The Africa Investment Forum and AfDB have championed two initiatives that are driving trade integration and regulatory harmonization throughout Africa. These are the African Medical Agency and the Africa Continental Free Trade Area.
In order to realize further its set goals, the AfDB has approved funding of $127.8 million to Niger. The funds approved by the Board of Directors of the African Development Fund, the Group’s concessional arm, will be used for a project to open up access to farming and pastoral lands in the east of the country, along its border with Nigeria.
It has also approved a $125.3 million loan to finance the first phase of the Dodoma Resilient and Sustainable Water Development and Sanitation Program in Tanzania.
Specifically, the loan from the African Development Fund will cover the construction of a dam and water treatment plant to address supply challenges in Dodoma City and the towns of Bahi, Chemba and Chamwino.
As a lead partner of the 9th World Water Forum, it plans to earmark more than $5.6 million to support the forum, billed as the world’s largest international water-related gathering. The event will be an opportunity for attendees to gain a deeper insight into how the bank provides technical and financial support to regional member countries to ensure water security for sustainable development in their territories through its Water Development and Sanitation Department.
“As one of the leading financing institutions on the continent with a commitment to the development of Africa’s water and sanitation sectors, it is a natural fit for the African Development Bank to support the Government of Senegal in co-hosting this Forum,” said Beth Dunford, the Bank’s Vice President for Agriculture, Human and Social Development. “Failure is not an option when it comes to mitigating the imbalance between water needs and water availability to boost economic development and stability,” she added.
Last month, for instance, it approved a $1.4 million grant for enhancing private sector engagement and capacity building for refugees and internally displaced persons in fragile areas of northern Mozambique.
The project will be implemented by the global refugee agency UNHCR, collaborating with the Government of Mozambique. The grant is from the Transition Support Facility Pillar III.
Mozambique is host to 28,000 refugees and asylum seekers and over 735,000 people displaced by ongoing violence in Cabo Delgado Province. The majority of the internally displaced people remained in the province. An estimated 69,000 people moved to Nampula, and the remaining moved to the provinces of Niassa, Sofala, and Zambezia.
As the United States and European sanctions broadened due to the “special military operation”, largely directed at “demilitarization” and “denazification” in Ukraine, there are, undoubtedly, terrible impacts on the African economy: increase in the price of gas, oil, agricultural raw materials…et cetera.
There is also some African ambiguity about Russia, with the public seeing Putin as a strongman who would therefore have the right to decide on a country’s future security alliances while being very concerned about their sovereignty.
The Russia-Ukraine crisis that started on February 24, to a considerable extent, has affected a number of African countries. The AfDB plans to raise $1bn (£759m) to support agricultural production in Africa and shield the continent from potential food shortages arising from the Russia-Ukraine crisis.
Agricultural trade between the continent’s countries and Russia and Ukraine is significant. African countries imported $4 billion worth of agricultural products from Russia in 2020.
About 90% of these products were wheat, and 6% were sunflower oil. The main importing countries were Egypt, which accounted for almost half of the imports, followed by Sudan, Nigeria, Tanzania, Algeria, Kenya and South Africa.
The UN also says at least 15 African countries get more than half their wheat from the two warring nations. Somalia, Benin, Egypt and Sudan are the most dependent. “The AfDB sees these increases in prices of wheat, maize and soya beans as potentially going to worsen food insecurity and raise inflation,” Mr Adesina said.
The bank intends to organize a meeting of African finance and agriculture ministers to roll out that plan. Through the fund, AfDB wants to increase the production of wheat rice, maize and soya beans using climate-resilient technologies, including heat-tolerant and drought-tolerant crop varieties. The heat-tolerant wheat variety has already been experienced in Sudan and Ethiopia.
The Africa Investment Forum, launched in 2018, is a multi-stakeholder, multi-disciplinary platform that advances private and public-private partnership projects to bankability. It raises capital and accelerates deals to financial closure.
The Africa Investment Forum is an initiative of the eight founding partners including the African Development Bank; Africa 50; the Africa Finance Corporation; the Africa Export-Import Bank; the Development Bank of Southern Africa; the Trade and Development Bank; the European Investment Bank; and the Islamic Development Bank.
By Aduragbemi Omiyale
Accessing the US Dollar in the East Africa region has now been made easier with the expansion of the stablecoin settlement infrastructure of SCRYPT.
This development enables banks, payment providers and corporate treasury teams to move value into and out of the continent in real time.
Businesses paying international suppliers frequently have to convert local currency into USD before purchasing stablecoins for settlement, incurring FX conversions and spreads before any payment is made.
But SCRYPT is eliminating this intermediate conversion by enabling direct settlement corridors for local African currencies into stablecoins.
This development allows businesses to move from local currency to stablecoin settlement in a single licensed transaction, without first sourcing rationed bank dollars, as stablecoins are increasingly becoming settlement infrastructure rather than an investment product.
The expansion adds settlement support across four African currencies: the Kenyan shilling (KES), Tanzanian shilling (TZS), Rwandan franc (RWF) and Ugandan shilling (UGX). Each corridor is delivered through the same full-stack infrastructure our clients already use for trading, custody and treasury operations.
Speaking on this, the chief executive of SCRYPT, Norman Wooding, said, “Across Africa, stablecoin adoption is driven by economic need, not speculation.
“Businesses here are not chasing yield; they are trying to pay suppliers and manage treasury without losing margin to a banking system that rations dollars. Licensed, fair-rate dollar access is the clearest proof of what this infrastructure is for.”
Also commenting, the Managing Director of Markets & Trading at SCRYPT, Mr Gabriel Titopoulos, said, “Until now, reaching stablecoins from local African currencies meant buying scarce dollars and incurring several layers of conversion costs.
“SCRYPT removes this friction. Firms and payment providers can now settle straight from local currencies through live corridors, with local partners.”
World
African Graduates Association Promoting Multifaceted Initiatives With Russian Educational Institutions
By Kestér Kenn Klomegâh
In preparations for the third Russia-Africa Summit, scheduled for late October 2026, Dr Francois Ngan, deputy chairman of the Union of Associations of African Graduates of Soviet and Russian Universities, during an official working visit, has held a consultative meeting with Professor Vladimir Filippov, the President of the Russian University of Peoples’ Friendship (RUDN), and former Minister of Higher Education of Russia, Chairman of the National Commission for Accreditation of Higher Education.
RUDN is an educational institution established in 1960, primarily to provide higher education to Third World students. It has now become a popular multidisciplinary spot for many students, especially from developing countries. The university offers various academic programmes and has research infrastructure that comprises laboratories and interdisciplinary centres. The university is named after the former Congolese leader, Patrice Lumumba.
Dr Francois Ngan and Professor Filippov discussed the importance of the Graduates Association as a continental platform dedicated to strengthening unity, cooperation, and promoting shared progress among African graduates who studied in the former Soviet Union and in the Russian Federation. They also reviewed multifaceted initiatives that could bring together alumni associations from across Africa, whose members obtained education and professional training, and cultural experiences in Soviet and Russian institutions of higher learning.
Professor Filippov expressed optimism in addressing emerging challenges as a result of shifting geopolitical changes, emphasised strategic cooperation in the educational sphere with Africa, in general, and with the Republic of Cameroon, in particular, and further about the integration of African students during their studies in the Russian Federation.
The meeting also touched on academic and scientific work, the possibility of rewriting a scientific thesis, and the official organisation of transferring versions translated into six languages for the library of RUDN. Significant questions relating to Russia’s educational opportunities, collaborations and partnerships involving African countries were thoroughly discussed.
The Union of Associations of African Graduates of Soviet and Russian Universities was created under one continental umbrella to promote friendship, for professional networking, to engage in cultural exchange, and with particular emphasis on forging strategic cooperation between Africa and Russia.
World
Russia to Support Industrial Growth, Technological Advancement and Supply Chain Resilience across Africa
By Kestér Kenn Klomegâh
With the heightening of geopolitical rivalry and competition, a new Russia-Africa working group has emerged as a significant institutional mechanism and plans to focus on facilitating and monitoring strategic investments, industrialisation, and infrastructural development—the Strategic Action Plan 2023-2026—that was outlined during the second Russia-Africa summit, in St.Petersburg, the second largest city in the Russian Federation.
While substantial progress has, largely, lagged on the multidimensional economic front with Africa primarily due to its internal difficulties and the complexity of relations with its former Soviet neighbours, Russian officials believe there still remains huge untapped potential in strengthening bilateral cooperation. As planned, President Vladimir Putin has already signed an executive order that directs Moscow to host the forthcoming third Russia-Africa summit in October 2026.
On June 30, a regular meeting of the Business Council on Africa was held under the chairmanship of the head of the Russian Foreign Ministry. It was dedicated to issues of trade, economic and investment cooperation with Africa. The group discussed the current state and prospects for the implementation of policy initiatives with an emphasis on assisting the countries of the continent, strengthening their economic, energy, technological and food sovereignty, as well as training specialists for Africa.
Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has reiterated that Russia-Africa relations primarily depend on an understanding of the importance of collective action based on the principles of equality, mutual respect and resolving common tasks. In the past few years, Russia-Africa cooperation has been noticeably strengthening. “We are deepening political dialogues, developing bilateral contacts with African countries, promoting cordial cooperation between ministries and departments, and expanding humanitarian exchanges. We are also continuing the structural diversification of trade partnerships and economic dimensions.”
“Next on the agenda is the launch of diplomatic missions in The Gambia, Liberia, Togo, and the Union of the Comoros,” Lavrov said at a meeting of the Business Council under the Russian foreign minister. Lavrov noted that Russian embassies began operating in three other African countries in 2025: Niger, Sierra Leone, and South Sudan. A new Department for Partnership with Africa was also established. According to the top diplomat, “expanding Russia’s diplomatic presence on the continent contributes to developing relations.”
There are already 45 Russian embassies operating in Africa. The Russian foreign minister noted that Moscow is quickly rebuilding its presence in African countries, which sharply declined during the collapse of the Soviet Union. “There will be literally four or five countries left where we still need to establish full-fledged embassies, and then, we will have 100 per cent coverage of the entire African continent with our diplomatic presence,” Lavrov emphasised.
After the first summit in October 2019, the Foreign Ministry also created the Secretariat of the Russia-Africa Partnership Forum. Its main tasks include controlling the roadmap to Africa’s multidimensional cooperation and guiding potential Russian investors to the continent. This also underscored the priority and post-Soviet solidarity Russia currently attaches to its policy towards Africa, within the growing framework of the emerging new architecture of multipolarity in the Global South.
In an interview in June 2026, the director of the Department of Partnership with Africa at the Foreign Ministry, Tatyana Dovgalenko, shared a few insights in the lead-up to the third summit. Furthermore, Dovgalenko explained that Russia would move away from security to concentrate more on economic issues, especially to team up with African colleagues to streamline mechanisms for implementing projects that will ensure food security and agriculture, and help Africa in installing processing facilities to support its self-sufficiency. She also emphasised energy and vital infrastructures, and the third direction was to simultaneously work more coherently with sub-regional organisations.
Over the past few years, bilateral relations have been increasing. There are positive dynamics in trade turnover, estimated at $30 billion. Steps are being taken to build payment systems, preferably in national currencies, while Russia looks to open four more diplomatic offices, bringing the total to 48 across Africa. Russia is currently training 37,000 African students, but only approximately 1/3 on state scholarships in Russia’s educational institutions. “We are ready to share valuable experiences of building a sovereign development model with African partners to achieve self-reliant economic growth based on their own resources and capabilities. Russia aims at creating processing capabilities and localising production, and provides access to advanced technological solutions,” underlined Dovgalenko in her interview with New Eastern Outlook.
For African countries that have endured difficult decades on the path to political independence, it is now important to take full control over the untapped resources, direct income and revenue toward stimulating the national economic sector, rather than paying for the well-being of the Western “golden billion” during this changing geopolitical era, according to Dovgalenko.
According to reports, the forthcoming Russia-Africa summit will have an economic agenda, including the digital economy, technology, artificial intelligence, healthcare, investment, and settlements in global trade. Of course, the agenda will also cover Africa’s political aspects. But if African friends bring along any specific ideas, Russia will give them serious attention. In addition, with continuity and consistency, pay increased attention to expanding ties with Africa’s regional integration associations.
Going forward, the focus will be on translating strong trade relations into deeper investment partnerships, fostering technology collaboration, strengthening industrial linkages and contributing towards the shared objectives set by the leadership of both African countries and Russia. At the third summit, the above-mentioned specific initiatives will be further designed. In this regard, the key document, the new action plan for the next three-year period (2027-2029), is intended to reflect dynamic realities in the future relations of Russia and Africa
