The World Bank in Africa

Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is an extremely diverse region, composed of low, lower-middle, upper-middle, and high-income countries – 22 of which are fragile or conflict-affected – and 13 small states characterized by a small population, limited human capital, and a confined land area. Boasting rich natural resources and the world’s largest free trade area and a 1.2-billion-person market, the continent has the potential to forge a new development path, harnessing the potential of its resources and people.

However, the region faces several development challenges. According to the region’s most recent economic update, growth in Sub-Saharan Africa is projected to slow to 2.5% in 2023, from 3.6% in 2022. Rising conflict and violence across the region exerts a dampening effect on economic activity, with climate shocks poised to exacerbate this fragility. About 462 million people in the region are still living in extreme poverty in 2023. The recent poly-crisis – climate-related issues, the COVID-19 pandemic, and mounting conflicts – has expedited this debt surge. The region continues to grapple with high debt distress risks, with 21 countries identified as either at high risk of external debt distress or already ensnared in it as of June 2023. Several countries, including Chad, Zambia, and Ghana, have initiated debt restructuring efforts to restore sustainability and rebuild fiscal space.

Growth remains uneven across the continent. While the East Africa is set to record a growth rate of 1.8% in 2023, West Africa is expected to grow at 3.3% this year. Overall, SSA’s economic performance is still being held back by the lower-than-average performance of the largest countries on the continent. Energy and transportation bottlenecks continue to impede economic activities in South Africa, while Nigeria's modest growth can be attributed to challenges in its oil sector. Moreover, conflicts and military coups in countries such as Sudan, Niger, and Gabon are likely to hamper growth in the Economic and Monetary Community of Central Africa and some Sahel nations.

Harnessing the potential of natural resources provides an opportunity to improve the fiscal and debt sustainability of African countries. Natural resources (oil, gas, and minerals) offer a huge economic opportunity for SSA economies during the low-carbon transition.

Africa can also pave the way to inclusive growth by investing in its human potential. Over the next three decades, the region will experience the fastest increase in the working age population of all regions, with a projected net increase of 740 million people by 2050. Up to 12million youth will enter the labor market across the region every year in the coming decades, yet only about 3 million new formal wage jobs are currently created each year. As the economies in the region recover at a faster pace in the years to come, policy should be geared toward sharing the growth benefits more equally across the population by investing in human capital, fostering economic diversification, and fostering jobs-friendly economic growth.

Last Updated: Oct 05, 2023

Two years into the pandemic, recovery in the region remains stymied amid multiple challenges such as the fallout of COVID-19 , food insecurity, global inflation, and climate shocks.  Countries in the region are being affected by the war in Ukraine primarily through higher global commodity prices, especially for wheat and energy, holding back growth in Sub-Saharan Africa.

 Our response efforts are focused around the following: addressing climate crises, food insecurity, and building resilience; protecting poor people; strengthening human capital; and creating jobs.

Addressing climate crises, food insecurity, and building resilience: The most pressing current crisis is food insecurity and the need to safeguard the calorie and nutrition needs of Africa’s one billion people. At least one in five Africans goes to bed hungry and an estimated 140 million people in Africa face acute food insecurity, according to the 2022 Global Report on Food Crises 2022 Mid-Year Update. The Horn of Africa is suffering from persistent drought and countries that depend on Russia and Ukraine for wheat and sunflower oil imports have seen prices skyrocket out of reach of ordinary people.

In response to these challenges, we are assisting countries to implement a range of short, medium, and long-term actions with World Bank support, to cushion the blow on the poorest households and set African food systems on a more resilient and productive pathway.

Furthermore, without concrete climate and development action, Africa could see more than 90 million people moving within countries as a result of water stress, drops in crop productivity, and sea level rise, compounded by storm surges by 2050. The World Bank Group is helping countries achieve climate and development breakthroughs, including for the key transitions – energy (including methane); agriculture, food, water, and land use; cities; transport; and manufacturing – that need to be transformed to make economies low-carbon and resilient. The Bank remains the largest financier for climate action reaching $22 billion in FY 2022; of which about $10 billion was from African countries – reflecting 36% of climate co-benefits. Adaptation financing was more than 50%.

We are also offering technical advice via a new diagnostic tool called the Country Climate and Development Reports (CCDRs). Developed in consultation with governments and key stakeholders, CCDRs analyze the connection between climate and development policies and identify concrete priority actions that support countries’ development goals and ambitions set out in their National Determined Contributions (NDCs).  In the Africa region, reports have been completed for:  Angola, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Ghana, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Rwanda, and South Africa.

Protecting poor people: To protect poor and vulnerable citizens and cushion the impact of the crisis on their livelihoods, the Bank is helping African countries scale up and adapt social safety net programs and ensure food security by supporting farmers to expand agricultural production as well as sustain food supply chains. Since the start of the pandemic, more than $5.7 billion new financing has been approved for social safety net programs across the continent, including in Somalia, Togo, Niger, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. This boost to safety net programs is helping address chronic poverty through cash transfers and supporting those who lost their livelihoods following the pandemic. The World Bank Group is deploying efforts to address the drivers of fragility, conflict, and violence (FCV). Over the last few years, the Bank has strengthened its engagement in the most volatile situations, such as the Sahel and the Horn of Africa, facilitated by enhanced diagnostics, footprint, financing, implementation tools, and partnerships.

Strengthening human capital: Education is critical in the fight against poverty and inequality. In June 2022, the Western and Central Africa region launched an education strategy at a ministerial meeting in Ghana. This strategy was then endorsed by more than 40 ministers of finance and education, who also issued a joint call for action to expand reforms and build a regional coalition to improve education outcomes. Leaders from the African continent agreed to prioritize reforms to improve learning quality, increase girls’ participation in secondary education, and strengthen the basic skills and literacy of young adults.  Across the region, the World Bank Group supports the African Higher Education Centers of Excellence for Development Impact initiative, which has significantly expanded post-graduate education by enrolling more than 14,000 students, over 30 percent of whom are women; it has also provided more than 2,000 internships.

COVID-19 continues to be a threat in the region as long as vaccination rates continue to remain low. The World Bank has taken fast action to help African countries strengthen their preparedness and health systems. As part of the global response since the start of the COVID-19 crisis, the World Bank Group has committed over $157 billion to address the impacts of the pandemic, which includes more than $39 billion for African countries to help them strengthen health systems and services, establish and expand social safety nets, and weather the economic impacts of the crisis. After a year of vaccine roll-out in 53 of the 54 countries of the African continent (Eritrea has no vaccine program so far), ensuring an adequate supply of affordable COVID-19 vaccines and proper deployment capacities are priorities for the region.

Creating jobs: Micro, Small, and Medium-Sized Enterprises, which provide the majority of jobs, have been particularly hard hit across the region where informal firms dominate employment. Public works and urban programs in countries such as the Central African Republic and Kenya are being launched or scaled up to facilitate job creation in low-income communities and to help increase access to livelihood support for extremely poor and vulnerable people like women and the youth. Meanwhile, the World Bank Group’s private sector arm, the International Finance Corporation (IFC), is working to increase financing for small businesses, develop digital infrastructure, help keep agriculture supply chains running, and enable local manufacturers to access working capital. The World Bank Group also continues to prioritize investments in digital economy.

Regional integration:  These new challenges, combined with the COVID-19 pandemic, have highlighted the importance of regional integration to Africa’s recovery efforts. It can help countries better coordinate in many ways, including on disease surveillance and response plans, regional trade, FCV, and private sector recovery. The Bank Group is committed to expanding our partnerships on regional cooperation and integration in support of Agenda 2063—a strategic framework to support inclusive and sustainable development in Africa. This will be achieved through our flagship projects, such as the implementation of the African Continental Free Trade Area Agreement, digital and energy integration, and trade facilitation.

Research and analysis: Knowledge is essential for governments to make better policies and institutions to make aid more effective. Our most recent regional studies can be found here, and analytical work by country is published on each country’s website.

Last Updated: Apr 05, 2023

Social Safety Nets

In Angola, the Social Protection System Project, known locally as the Kwenda Project, has registered nearly 600,000 households across 18 provinces to receive cash transfers, of which about 60% are female-headed. By 2023, 1.6 million households will be beneficiaries of Kwenda cash transfers which represents all poor households in the country. This would make Kwenda one of the largest cash transfer programs in Sub-Saharan Africa.

In the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the International Development Association’s (IDA) social protection program, “STEP” (Projet pour la Stabilisation de l’Est de la RDC pour la Paix), has supported poor populations. Its outcomes from February 2014 to December 2022 include improved access to livelihoods for 530,000 beneficiaries—over 200,000 of them women—through cash transfers, cash-for-work, and other safety net activities, disbursing more than $93 million overall. The project supported upgrades of 2,185 community infrastructures, such as schools and clinics, through 950 community-driven development programs and 1,235 public work schemes.

In Liberia, the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated poverty and threatened livelihoods, and this challenge spurred the expansion and digitization of the government’s ongoing cash transfer program. The Liberia Social Safety Nets Project launched the government’s first-ever urban cash transfer program. It provided emergency cash transfers for close to 15,000 households living in vulnerable communities in the Greater Monrovia area, which had recorded the highest number of COVID-19 cases in Liberia. These households received the cash transfers in their mobile wallet accounts. Up to 70% of cash recipients were women. The project is financed by a $10 million credit from IDA and co-financed by USAID ($5.4 million) and the United Kingdom’s FCDO ($3.5 million).

In Somalia, the Baxnaano program has provided a platform for the government to play a role in social safety net provision to households facing chronic poverty and the aggravating impacts of multiple, climate-related shocks. In the first two years of Baxnaano-Regular’s implementation, about 200,000 households (over one million individuals) benefited from its predictable, nutrition-linked Universal Cash Transfers. Women accounted for 100% of its direct recipients, nearly 40% of them using SIM cards for the first time—a major step in financial inclusion for poor women in Somalia. Nearly 100,000 households (about 600,000 individuals) received livelihood protection through monthly Baxnaano-Shock Electronic Cash Transfers during the locust crisis; 72% of its direct recipients were women.

In South Sudan, the Safety Net Project has improved the livelihoods and resilience of thousands, providing temporary income opportunities to 423,100 individuals from 65,045 households across the ten counties in South Sudan, including the capital Jube, through Direct Income Support and Labor-intensive Public Works. In addition, the project has supported complementary training (the Cash “Plus” component) empowering households, particularly women, with additional skills and knowledge in financial literacy, water, hygiene, and sanitation (WASH), and early childhood development to improve the well-being of their families.

Adapting to climate change and building climate resilience

In 2020, the World Bank launched The Next Generation African Climate Business Plan (NG-ACBP), setting out an innovative blueprint to help Sub-Saharan African economies achieve low carbon, climate-resilient outcomes. Under the Plan, the Bank is channeling $22.5 billion to Sub-Saharan Africa for climate adaptation and mitigation from 2021–25. This complements the World Bank Group Global Climate Action Plan, which sets a target for 35% of our financing to have climate co-benefits, on average, over the next five years and that 50% of this financing supports adaptation and resilience.  The NG-ACBP also underscores the World Bank’s efforts to support a green, resilient, and inclusive recovery from the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic while addressing the longer-term challenge of climate change in Sub-Saharan Africa.

In the Republic of Congo, the $41.8 million Emission Reductions Program (ERP) in Sangha and Likouala aims to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation by rewarding the conservation efforts of key stakeholders with matching payments of their efforts. The project, which is among the first large-scale REDD+ experiments in Africa, will be implemented in the departments of Sangha and Likouala, which cover more than 12 million hectares and account for nearly 60% of the country's forests. The objective is to reduce CO2 emissions by the equivalent of 8,359,000 tons (i.e. around 100,000 Paris - Brazzaville plane flights).

In Malawi, the Agricultural Commercialization Project (AGCOM) is helping markets work for smallholders who already operate commercially or are in transition to becoming commercial. A few years in, the results are promising: the benefits of investing in smallholder commercial agriculture and its “productive alliances” approach are proving to be an effective way for smallholders to get organized and improve their productivity and sales. AGCOM gives small agricultural and fisheries businesses grants to enable them to expand. Businesses are required to contribute a percentage as a mark of their commitment and viability. AGCOM had signed a total of 265 productive alliances by the end of 2022, half of them with businesses dealing in essential foodstuffs, such as soya beans and dairy products. AGCOM’s productive alliances are fostering job creation in Malawi, with opportunities for employment crucial to buffer the impact of a looming food crisis and to create opportunities for the 400,000-plus young people joining the workforce in Malawi every year.

In Madagascar, the Connectivity for Rural Livelihood Improvement Project has increased the resilience of infrastructure and improved people’s livelihoods, helping reduce fragility, migration, and a sense of marginalization. Safety and security have improved; before, the vehicles and travelers forced to move slowly on bad roads were subject to banditry. The project has assisted about 400,000 beneficiaries, half of them women, by substantially reducing their travel time, increasing their income, and improving their access to schools and hospitals. Improved and timely access to markets, via better roads, has also helped farmers, especially rice farmers, boost their income by selling their produce at higher prices. 

Supporting inclusive governance and transforming economies 

Enabling efficient and inclusive delivery of services, such as judicial courts, waste management, water, electricity, ICT and safety nets, and building strong and accountable institutions and systems that are resilient to economic, social, and environmental pressures are the foundations of the Bank’s work on governance and inclusion in Africa.

The $67 million Democratic Republic of Congo Strengthening Public Financial Management (PFM) and Accountability Project has been helping to improve domestic revenue mobilization, public expenditure management, and accountability, at central level and in selected provinces. Project support for the Inspection Générale des Finances (IGF), which includes the development of risk-based audit approaches, training for more than a hundred new staff, and the acquisition of IT equipment and audit applications, has helped IGF undertake effective financial investigations that are contributing to reining in corruption and misappropriation of public resources.

In Burkina Faso, the Local Government Support, COVID-19 and Resilience Response Project contributed to strengthening citizen engagement and public sector accountability, as well as supporting decentralization in the country. It played a vital role in supporting 423,521 Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) through the provision of essential household items, as well as by strengthening municipalities’ capacities to mitigate the impact of the overlapping security and the COVID-19 crises. The project was financed by IDA for a total amount of $120 million. Support to the IDPs was provided in close collaboration with the Burkina Faso Social Safety Net Project ($166 million). The project provided complementary support for the preparation of the Community-Based Recovery and Stabilization Project for the Sahel ($352.5 million). It also complemented the COVID-19 Preparedness and Response Project ($21.15 million).

The Mauritania Decentralization and Productive Intermediate Cities Support Project contributes to the development of selected intermediate cities in the South and East and technical support to the decentralization process. It is financed with $66 million from the International Development Association (IDA), and support totaling $5 million from the State budget. The project directly impacts (i) the population of the cities and surrounding rural areas of Rosso, Kiffa, Selibaby, Aioun, and refugees and host communities of the M’bera Camp, Bassikounou, Nema, and Adel Bagrou will get improved access to urban services or electricity from renewable energy sources; (ii) over 140 formal enterprises and 11,000 informal and social actors will have improved access to infrastructure and services to grow their businesses; and (iii) staff and elected representatives of local institutions whose capacity will be reinforced.

Boosting Sub-Saharan Africa’s human capital through education and empowerment

The World Bank's Africa Human Capital plan sets ambitious targets to boost Sub-Saharan Africa’s human capital—the knowledge, health and resilience of its people. By the end of fiscal year 2022, the total World Bank Africa human development portfolio included 232 health, education, and social protection projects worth $34.3 billion, with 79 human development projects totaling $8.2 billion approved in fiscal year 2022 alone.

Since the launch of the Africa Human Capital Plan in 2019, the World Bank has approved over $11.5 billion in investments that champion women and girls and has worked together with governments, regional institutions, and development partners to expand multi-sectoral programs with immediate and long-term solutions that invest in women and girls.

For example, the Sahel Women’s Empowerment and Demographic Dividend Project (SWEDD) works across the Sahel to improve the availability and affordability of reproductive health services, strengthen specialized training centers for rural-based midwives, improve nursing services, and pilot and share knowledge on adolescent girls’ initiatives, increasing their agency and productivity. SWEDD has so far reached more than 2 million girls in nine countries, beyond the Sahel region, with $680 million in Bank funding.

The DRC, supported by $800 million in IDA financing, is driving major education reforms that include free primary school and improved teacher payment and recruitment systems. 2.3 million additional students enrolled in public primary schools in school year 2021–22; 58,000 new teachers were brought on the payroll through a new merit-based recruitment program and paid regularly; and 20,000 safe and inclusive school focal points were appointed in public primary schools as part of major efforts to reduce sexual exploitation and abuse/sexual harassment (SEA/SH).

Five projects in Rwanda ($300 million) are working to build quality education and a skilled labor force. In the largest-ever school expansion effort, Rwanda has added more than 22,500 new classrooms with accessibility features such as ramps for wheelchairs and gender-segregated toilets to allow students. An additional 68,000 Rwandan children aged 5 to 14 years can now access school within a two-kilometer radius, cutting down their travel. Primary student-to-classroom ratio has dropped from 73 students to 49 students per class on average, which has enabled better student-teacher interaction and quality of instruction.

Zimbabwe has made strides to retain adolescent girls in school, providing over 1,000 girls in Buhera, one of its poorest and most water-scarce districts, with menstrual hygiene kits (supplies for 12 months). The impact was lifechanging

Stepping up to support regional integration in Africa

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the importance of regional integration as a key element of Africa’s recovery efforts to better coordinate on regional disease surveillance and response plans, keep regional trade flows open, address fragility that could spill across borders, support private sector recovery, and much more. The current Regional Integration program supported by the World Bank amounts to over $16 billion, with over 90 projects. These are helping to (i) expand infrastructure to build greater regional connectivity in the key areas of energy, digital and transport; (ii) promote trade and market integration; (iii) support human capital development, particularly in the areas of health, education, and women’s empowerment; and to (iv) reinforce resilience by helping to address climate-change related challenges and other cross-border risks and vulnerabilities caused by conflicts and insecurity. The World Bank Group is committed to scale up its partnership and support to strengthen regional cooperation and integration in Africa towards the Agenda 2063 and its flagship projects such as the implementation of the African Continental Free Trade Area agreement, digital and energy integration, and trade facilitation.

Expanding Access to Electricity and Digital Technology

Access to energy is one of the most profound development challenges Sub-Saharan Africa faces. In 2022, 600 million people in Africa, or 43% of the continent, lacked access to electricity. The vast majority of them—590 million or 98%—were in Sub-Saharan Africa. To address this challenge, the Bank is helping to increase access to affordable reliable and sustainable energy across Africa. Operations support grid extension and expansion of transmission networks, innovative off-grid electrification solutions, expansions of renewable generation capacity, development of regional power pools, and improvement of service efficiency. 

Digital technologies need reliable electricity to power the data centers Africa needs to expand productive digital growth and assist in generating good jobs that are essential for the more than 22 million Africans joining the workforce each year. Internet availability can increase jobs and reduce poverty in African countries and the digital revolution is a historic opportunity for Africa to leapfrog into the fast-growing $11.5 trillion global digital economy and bypass traditional economic stages. In fragile contexts, digital technology solutions can help deliver services to the poor when more traditional methods cannot, for example through smart cards and mobile money. They can help advance the creation of digital IDs and the Identification for Development (ID4D), also a key accelerator for human capital.

Two empirical studies undertaken for the World Bank’s March 2023 report, Digital Africa: Technological Transformation for Jobs, add to the rapidly growing evidence base that technology provides a pathway to inclusive growth. These studies analyzed geospatial information on the rollout of mobile internet towers over time, combined with household data surveys over a six- to seven-year period. They show that internet availability clearly has a positive impact on jobs and welfare.

As part of the West Africa Power Pool Program, the project for the construction of the Ghana-Burkina Faso Interconnector reduced the cost of electricity supply to Burkina Faso, and increased Ghana’s electricity export capacity. The project helped achieve the following results: i) average weighted annual cost of electricity supply in Burkina Faso was reduced from $0.26 per kWh to $0.20 per kWh; ii) annual duration of outages in Burkina Faso due to generation capacity deficit/load shedding was reduced from 130.00 to 8.00 iii) Ghana’s ability to export electricity increased by 200 MW. The project was supported by IDA grants totaling $41.9 million, including $16 million to Burkina Faso and a credit of $25.9 million to Ghana.

In Rwanda, the Energy Access and Quality Improvement Project (EAQIP) is enhancing the availability and efficiency of low-cost renewable energy and expanding grid connections for residential, commercial, industrial, and public sector consumers. The project includes the World Bank’s largest clean cooking operation in Africa, and the first project co-financed by the recently launched Clean Cooking Fund (CCF), hosted by the World Bank’s Energy Sector Management Assistance Program (ESMAP).

Also in Rwanda, the Digital Acceleration Project is taking a comprehensive approach to tackling gender gaps. It is promoting, for example, access to the Internet and mobile devices through a financing scheme that incorporates incentives for operators and collaborates with women’s groups to improve women’s access to smartphones. It is also tackling low participation of women in the ICT sector by designing women-centered digital skills trainings that ensure gender parity among trainers and considers issues such as suitable times, convenient locations, flexibly and childcare.

In Togo, IDA provided $72 million to finance social protection delivery systems and equipment for the Novissi platform, which uses machine learning, geospatial analytics, and mobile phone metadata for the pandemic response. the Novissi platform delivers contactless, emergency cash transfers based on machine learning techniques and mobile money. The poorest villages and neighborhoods are selected through high-resolution satellite imagery and nationally representative household consumption data. Within those areas, the poorest people are then prioritized through machine learning algorithms using mobile phone metadata and phone surveys. Novissi predicted consumption patterns for 5.7 million individuals, or 70% of population. In 2020-2021, 57,000 new beneficiaries were prioritized for contactless, social protection payments using predictive algorithms. This is part of a $400 million IDA program across six countries in West Africa.

Last Updated: Apr 07, 2023

The World Bank Group (WBG) leverages partnerships, knowledge, and financing instruments to further its twin goals of ending poverty and promoting shared prosperity. To address the overlapping crises impacting the region and deepen and accelerate support for African development, the WBG works in partnership with a broad range of actors, aligning objectives and exploiting synergies and comparative advantages.

Together with the G7 presidency, the World Bank has convened the Global Alliance for Food Security (GAFS) to catalyze an immediate and concerted response to the unfolding global hunger crisis, including increasing the supplies of food, fertilizer, and fuel, removing barriers to trade, and provide financial support to ease the impacts of this crisis. Partners contributing to the alliance include the African Union, the United Nations Global Crisis Response Group, the World Food Programme (WFP), the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the UN International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), as well as the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).

Efforts to vaccinate Africa against the COVID-19 pandemic and other diseases are ongoing. Through the Vaccine Acquisition Trust (AVAT), the African Union, the United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF), and the World Bank have helped the Africa Region acquire 293 million vaccines against COVID-19 and strengthen deployment processes throughout the continent, supporting the African Union’s target to vaccinate 70 percent of the continent’s population by 2023. Additionally, the World Bank has approved a $100 million support program for the Africa Centers for Disease Control (Africa CDC) as a specialized institution of the African Union Commission, aiming to enhance institutional capacity and strengthen its institutional framework to support African countries and regional economic commissions in preparing for, detecting, and responding to disease outbreaks.

Regional integration is a key priority for the Continent. The World Bank is working with the African Union Commission (AUC), the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) Secretariat and UNECA to facilitate the implementation of the AfCFTA. The Bank also has strategic partnerships and collaborations with the Regional Economic Commissions (RECs), regional development banks and other regional bodies, including SADC, IGAD, EAC, COMESA, ECOWAS, UEMOA, CEMAC, ECCAS, BEAC, BOAD, and Trade and Development Bank, the Southern, Eastern and West African Power Pools and River Basin Authorities.

The World Bank Group is a founding member of the Sahel Alliance, along with France, Germany, the European Union (EU), African Development Bank (AFDB), and United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). The alliance coordinates development efforts and financing in Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger, to support resilient growth and stability in the Sahel. It aims to expand access to services and economic opportunities in the G5-Sahel countries. The WBG has scaled up its financial support to the G5 Sahel countries through the International Development Association (IDA) to support conflict prevention, resilience, and emergency responses, with IDA financing estimated to reach $6.5 billion for fiscal years 21-22. 

The Horn of Africa (HoA) Initiative is a partnership of the countries in the Horn represented by their Finance Ministers , supported by the African Development Bank (AFDB), European Union and the World Bank Group, for scaling up regional integration and cooperation on the priority pillars of infrastructure connectivity, trade and economic integration, resilience, and human capital. The Initiative has a priority package of $15 billion. The three development partners have financed over $7 billion on projects in the priority package. The Bank’s regional investments account for over $ 5 billion, in pandemic preparedness, transport, energy, digital development, groundwater, disease surveillance, regional value chains, livestock, and fragility. The World Bank will continue to strengthen this platform to support the Initiative with knowledge, analytics, and investments to foster regional cooperation as a model of green, resilient and inclusive development in the Horn of Africa.

The World Bank also supports countries in addressing forced displacement and refugees. Collaboration with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the International Organization for Migrations (IOM), the EU, the AUC, and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) underpins World Bank programs implementing a development approach to forced displacement and fragile contexts in the Great Lakes, Horn of Africa, Sahel, and Lake Chad countries.

We are stepping up support for digital transformation in Africa in collaboration with the AUC, AFDB, UNECA, GIZ, China, the French Development Agency (AFD), the UK Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO), Japan International Coordination Agency (JICA), EU, European Investment Bank (EIB), Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the International Telecommunications Union, and Smart Africa. The Digital Economy for Africa (DE4A) initiative supports the operationalization of the AUC’s digital transformation strategy (DTS) 2020-2030 to ensure that every individual, business and government in Africa are digitally enabled by 2030. The World Bank has launched the Agile Regulation for Digital Transformation Capacity Building Program (A.Reg4DT) in partnership with GIZ and Smart Africa Secretariat to enhance the regulatory capacity for digital transformation and facilitate regional collaboration. The World Bank also supports accelerating the regional integration efforts for the digital market in Africa, and works closely with the RECs, including ECOWAS Commission, EAC, and IGAD, to strengthen their capacity to coordinate and advise their member countries in the region.

The World Bank has a long-standing partnership with Japan. Together with the AUC, the United Nations Office of the Special Adviser on Africa (OSAA), and the UNDP, the World Bank is a co-organizer of the Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD).

In partnership with several donors, the trust fund portfolio of the Sub-Saharan Africa Region stands at $4 billion.  Top donors contributing up to 88% of this large volume include the EU, UK, Germany, Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark and Canada.  The portfolio includes key country umbrella programs (Somalia, Sudan, Zimbabwe, the multi-country Horn of Africa and Liberia).  It also includes a number of sector specific partnerships, spanning across the World Bank’s practice groups.  Social Protection & Jobs, Agriculture, Transport, Water, Energy & Extractives, Finance and Environment are among the top practices benefitting from these contributions.

The Africa Region also leverages the combined strength of the entire World Bank Group by working closely with the International Finance Corporation (IFC) and the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA) in energy, digital, agribusiness, water, transport, and other priority areas.

Last Updated: Dec 12, 2022