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Africa
Demographic, social, ecological, energy, political, and technological transitions … African countries face decisive challenges for their future. AFD is rising to meet them.
Africa: AFD Group’s main geographic priority
Africa, the Group’s main geographic priority, accounts for a significant share of its activity. Present in 44 countries, AFD Group supports economic, social, and environmental transitions across the continent by mobilizing financing and partnerships for sustainable development that benefits local populations.
Africa is the Group’s primary area of operation and lies at the heart of France’s policy for solidarity- and sustainability-driven investment. With nearly €35 billion in ongoing projects, the Group finances public policies, infrastructure, and essential investments that help sustainably improve living conditions.
Through its financing and close dialogue with partners, AFD Group supports priorities defined by countries themselves. It supports the continent’s major economic and social transformations, particularly those affecting young people, by backing initiatives in training, employment, and entrepreneurship. This approach is based on a core conviction: development solutions are built first and foremost at the local level, as close as possible to people’s needs.
In an aging world, Africa is the only continent whose population is expected to continue growing strongly through the end of the century. If supported by investment in education, employment, and managed mobility, this demographic momentum could become one of the strongest assets for partnerships between Africa and Europe.
AFD Group also works on global public goods by supporting the energy transition, climate change adaptation, and food security. In Africa, around €2.5 billion in climate financing is mobilized each year to support low-carbon and climate-resilient development pathways.
Beyond its financing activities, AFD Group acts as a catalyst by mobilizing international resources and structuring co-financing with major development institutions such as the World Bank, the African Development Bank, and the European Union. In doing so, it helps scale up the impact of projects and strengthen cooperation dynamics.
Lastly, AFD Group’s work contributes to France’s economic and strategic influence by supporting major investment projects, creating opportunities for French companies, and fostering a long-term economic presence across the continent.
Supporting transitions across the African continent
AFD Group works to meet the aspirations of African societies, with a particular focus on young people and women. Its action is centered on education, training, and employment, while also supporting entrepreneurship and innovation. The Group also invests in culture, sport, and civil society to strengthen social cohesion. Lastly, it supports vocational training and the private sector to foster employment and sustainable economic development.
AFD Group is strengthening its approach around the education–training–employment continuum in order to provide a structured response to the challenges of inclusion and empowerment, particularly for young people and women. As part of this effort, it is also expanding its support for entrepreneurship and innovation.
The Group is also developing new operations in the fields of culture, sport, heritage, and civil society, thereby helping strengthen social cohesion and local capacity for action. In parallel, it is broadening its scope of intervention to sectors that directly reflect the aspirations of African societies, notably through support for major initiatives such as the Maison des Mondes Africains (MansA) and the Foundation for Innovation for Democracy.
Entrepreneurship, innovation, and the private sector are central pillars of the economic partnership with Africa. To support them, AFD Group mobilizes complementary instruments designed to sustainably strengthen entrepreneurial ecosystems. AFD primarily works on public policy, institutional frameworks, domestic resource mobilization mechanisms, and support systems for entrepreneurship, while Proparco directly finances companies, financial institutions, and investment funds. Expertise France complements this approach through technical assistance activities.
Between 2018 and 2024, Proparco significantly expanded its engagement in Africa, doubling its annual financing and mobilizing more than €7.6 billion – around €1.2 billion per year – particularly in support of infrastructure, agriculture and food security, stronger financial systems, and the development of essential services.
The Group is also rolling out flagship initiatives to support entrepreneurship. During its first phase (2018–2022), the Choose Africa program – a flagship Group initiative – mobilized nearly €3.5 billion for more than 40,000 African startups, microenterprises, and SMEs, helping create or sustain more than two million jobs.
Since 2023, Choose Africa 2, implemented in partnership with Bpifrance, has facilitated access to financing for more than 22,500 businesses each year while supporting partner states in structuring public entrepreneurship support mechanisms. The program is notably deployed in West Africa, particularly in Senegal, Côte d’Ivoire, Togo, and Benin.
Lastly, Expertise France implements the DiasDev program in several countries, promoting innovative solutions to mobilize resources from diaspora communities.
Vocational training is a central pillar of investment in young people, closely linked to employability and workforce inclusion. Between 2022 and 2025, €992 million was committed through 58 projects, representing 66% of the activity of the Employment, Training, and Education Division, benefiting nearly 50,000 young people, almost 90% of them in Africa.
As part of this effort, the Group develops operations closely aligned with the needs of local economies and businesses, particularly those investing on the continent. The results achieved and experience gained reflect this approach through flagship projects such as the Aeronautics Training Institute in Morocco, the Youth Employment Challenge program in Côte d’Ivoire, as well as investments in sector-specific institutes, university strengthening, and the development of technical training.
Africa Forward Summit
Our regional divisions
For the African continent, Agence Française de Développement has five regional divisions designed to ensure the steering, coordination, and implementation of its operations as close as possible to local contexts and development challenges.
A gateway between the Sahel, the Lake Chad region, and the Atlantic Ocean, the Gulf of Guinea is a demographic and economic powerhouse on the African continent. Yet its momentum is held back by a number of internal vulnerabilities. Active in Benin, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, and Togo, AFD Group supports the region’s drive for prosperity and aims to help anchor an inclusive, sustainable, and participatory development dynamic.
At the heart of the African continent, Central Africa has several major assets: a young population, more than 120 million hectares of land suitable for agriculture and agribusiness, and one of the world’s most vital ecosystems in terms of water and forest resources – the Congo-Ubangi-Sangha Basin. The region’s seven countries – Cameroon, Republic of the Congo, Central African Republic, Gabon, Democratic Republic of the Congo, São Tomé and Príncipe, and Equatorial Guinea – also face security, economic, and social challenges. It is in this context that AFD Group supports them in pursuing green and inclusive development.
Bordering both the Sahel and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, East Africa is the continent’s largest population center. While the region has experienced the strongest economic growth in Africa over the past two decades, it also faces a range of challenges, including debt, inequality, food insecurity, climate change, and security issues. AFD Group’s operations in Burundi, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Somalia, Sudan, South Sudan, and Tanzania aim to foster inclusive and sustainable prosperity across the region.
Stretching from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean, from Angola to Mozambique, AFD’s work in Southern Africa covers 10 countries, including two landlocked within South Africa: South Africa, Angola, Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. Despite its disparities, Southern Africa has the highest GDP per capita on the continent and relatively stable political systems. Yet it is also the most unequal region in Africa. AFD Group aims to support fair and sustainable transitions across the region while strengthening ties between Southern Africa and France.
Choose Africa: a French initiative supporting African entrepreneurship
Tangible improvements for African populations
- In terms of human development, more than 41.5 million people gained improved access to healthcare.
- Living conditions across the continent were improved through access to safely managed drinking water and sanitation services for nearly 20.8 million people, as well as access to energy for more than 11.6 million people.
- In response to the environmental emergency, AFD strengthened the resilience of 9.4 million people and helped protect 447,000 hectares of biodiversity. To give a sense of scale, this represents an area larger than Cape Verde, or roughly three times the size of the Maasai Mara National Reserve.
A project? A question?
Key figures
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€35 BN invested, representing around 50% of the project portfolio.
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1396 projects under implementation, representing 48% of AFD’s projects.
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€992 M allocated to projects supporting vocational training, higher education, and youth employment between 2022 and 2025.
