Africa

1. US visa bonds impact
2. Startup funding grows
3. Kenya’s new digital lenders
4. Sudan war milestone
5. IMF Africa chief departs
6. Weekend Reads

Equatorial Guinea moves its capital.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi landed in Ethiopia this week, beginning a four-country African tour that marks the 36th consecutive year Beijing’s top diplomat has opened the calendar with a visit to the continent. The tradition is often cited as proof of China’s steady commitment to Africa. But it would be naive to pretend that recent shocks — and intensifying great-power rivalry — do not shape which capitals make the itinerary.

This year’s stops — Ethiopia, Somalia, Tanzania, and Lesotho — all sit, in different ways, on the fault lines of US President Donald Trump’s revamped foreign policy.

Tanzania is still recalibrating after violent elections in October triggered an unusually forceful US response that caught its diplomats off guard. Lesotho, briefly hit with steep US tariffs last year, still faces uncertainty over the future of AGOA, the preferential US-Africa trade pact that underpins much of its export economy. For both, China offers a measure of stability.

However Wang’s first stop in Addis Ababa — also home to the African Union — carries broader significance. The AU’s recent reiteration of support for Beijing’s “One China” policy has fresh salience following Israel’s recognition of Somaliland, the breakaway region of Somalia. The issue resonates not only at the AU, but in Ethiopia itself, which has long eyed Somaliland’s ports as a strategic outlet for the landlocked country.

In Mogadishu, Wang is expected to underscore China’s support for Somalia’s territorial integrity, a position Beijing reiterated just days after Israel’s move. The stance aligns with China’s own sensitivities over sovereignty and separatism.

China’s Africa policy has not fundamentally shifted. But abrupt changes in long-held US positions — on trade, elections, and even religion — have sharpened the geopolitical stakes. Wang’s annual January tour now looks less like a diplomatic ritual, and more like an exercise in strategic timing.

US visa bonds to slash travel

New US rules that require Africans to post deposits of up to $15,000 are likely to deepen a trend of declining visa approvals for the continent’s travellers. The policy was floated last year, initially targeting Malawi and Zambia. But it has expanded to impact 24 African countries, including Angola, Nigeria, and Senegal, and goes into effect this month. The Trump administration cited high overstay rates for introducing the policy, which comes amid a broader anti-immigration push.

The size of the bonds, ranging from $5,000 to $15,000, will be determined for each traveler during their visa interview process — without a guarantee of issuance. The money will only be returned after the traveler exits the US before the expiry of their visa. Nigerian businesses in particular have strong ties in America, with many of the country’s venture capital-backed startups incorporated in US states, especially Delaware.

Startup investment bounces back

African startups raised $3.2 billion in 2025, the highest amount in three years, reflecting increased activity by investors on the continent after local currency instability saw global capital become more risk‑averse.

The total represented a 40% increase from 2024, according to data from consultancy Africa: The Big Deal. More than 200 companies raised at least $1 million during the year — about 10% more than in 2023. Some of the largest startup investments in 2025 were in clean energy and fintech.

The last few years of startup dealmaking saw US investors shift their focus away from Africa, amid high inflation and the end of the zero interest rate policy era, but African investors have stepped up with new funds to back the continent’s entrepreneurs. Some US investors, like Accion, have also raised Africa-specific funds.

— Alexander Onukwue

Kenya’s new digital lenders

Kenya licensed 42 new digital lenders, raising the country’s total number to 195, as the central bank pushes to formalize a sector that has become an important part of East Africa’s largest economy. The country has one of the most advanced mobile money ecosystems in emerging markets, providing Kenyans with access to finance that is mobilized for everything from paying medical bills to launching businesses. Recent research showed that digital loan borrowers in Kenya saw higher incomes and improved employment prospects.

The growth of digital lending companies offers consumers more choice but, because the sector was once dominated by unregulated apps and predatory lenders, it has faced calls for tighter regulation: Growing complaints about exorbitant interest rates, data abuse, and unethical loan recovery practices led the Central Bank of Kenya to introduce regulations in 2022.

Sudan war marks new milestone

The number of days since Sudan’s civil war began, in April 2023. More than 12 million people have been displaced as a result of the power struggle between Sudan’s armed forces and the Rapid Support Forces paramilitary group. Widespread violence, including allegations of a genocide in the western Darfur region, has led to at least 150,000 people being killed, alongside famine and a collapse of health systems in what the UN has called the world’s largest humanitarian crisis.

Peace talks in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain have failed, with attention increasingly focused on the international actors fueling the war: The UAE is accused of being the biggest weapons provider to the RSF, allegations it has denied. “At this point, the likely outcome of any peace process is that Sudan — whether united or divided — will end up as a vassal of the Gulf states,” Alex de Waal, executive director of the World Peace Foundation, wrote in Foreign Affairs. He noted that Africa was notably absent from “this game for control,” as Sudan has become “a prototype of a new kind of international war.”

Semafor this week announced it secured major financing, funding it plans to use for an expansion of its global newsroom and live journalism business. The Wall Street Journal described our audience as “C-suite executives, government leaders and public policymakers,” and reported that we’re building “a brand on par with business publications such as The Economist or the Financial Times.” Crucially, Reuters noted, whereas major publishers are “facing declines in traffic,” Semafor generated a profit in 2025, our third full year of operations. Media and business executives taking part in the fundraising included founding backers such as Henry Kravis of KKR and Carlyle’s David Rubenstein, with new backers including European media investors and former US Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker.

Person of Interest: Abebe Aemro Selassie

Abebe Aemro Selassie, director of the IMF’s Africa department, is set to retire from the role he has held since 2016. The Ethiopian economist worked with African governments over a tumultuous decade dominated by the COVID-19 pandemic that was followed by a period of high inflation, supply chain shocks, and global trade upheavals.

Abebe has been a long-time advocate for sub-Saharan African economies to deepen their capital markets and expand tax collection. As access to international financing has dwindled in recent years, he has said increased public debt from domestic banks in local currency is a “positive sign” but also cautioned against excessive borrowing at higher interest rates.

His departure in May will end a 32-year career at the Fund in which he held a series of senior roles after previously working as an economist for Ethiopia’s government. In a 2023 essay, Abebe, a graduate of the London School of Economics, urged the global community to help African nations overcome the post-COVID funding squeeze because “this will be the African Century” due to demographic trends.

Weekend Reads:

• Three months into Malawian President Peter Mutharika’s new term, the leader is facing a triple crisis: widespread food insecurity, soaring debt, and huge foreign aid cuts, The New Humanitarian reports. Droughts and localized flooding last year resulted in a 20% drop in maize yields nationally, and only $26 million of the required $119 million needed to avoid a humanitarian disaster has been raised. “This country has potential to defeat hunger, but our policies need to be reformed in view of extreme weather events and other climate impacts,” one activist told the outlet.

• Uganda’s newly launched LLM, Sunflower, has been promoted as a pillar of Kampala’s AI ambitions. The model can translate and understand many of the country’s local languages, unavailable on services like ChatGPT and Google Translate. However, the core of the technology is built on Chinese firm Alibaba’s Qwen-3 models. An investigation by the Chinese Media Network uncovered censorship of some topics considered controversial by both the Ugandan and Chinese governments, raising the question of who will control information as AI use becomes more widespread in Africa.

• Climate migration across Africa is often framed as a humanitarian issue, but really should be seen as “institutional stress tests,” Nixon S. Chekenya and Canicio Dzingirai argue in a London School of Economics blog post. While international migration within the continent can be a source of violence, with proper preparation this doesn’t have to be the case. “Stronger institutions are a climate-resilience strategy,” they argued. “But in fragile states… where politics is easily inflamed, competition over scarce resources can escalate quickly.”

• Driving instructors in Harare used to focus on teaching students the highway code, but now “we teach them to stay alive in spite of incorrect actions of other road users,” one told The Independent. In Zimbabwe, a road crash occurs every 15 minutes, resulting in five fatalities each day. Economic decline is mostly to blame, as road maintenance has become less frequent, and informal public transport has boomed. “Drivers are not licensed to be killers, they are licensed to practice road safety and safeguard lives,” one police spokesperson said of the crisis.

• A new exhibition at New York’s Museum of Modern Art will focus on the politics of African portraiture, with a particular focus on photobooks. Ideas of Africa: Portraiture and Political Imagination showcases a critical photo-historical era for Africans and the diaspora: The postcolonial transformations of the 1960s and 1970s, and the US Civil Rights Movement. In an interview with Aperture magazine, the exhibition’s curator, Oluremi C. Onabanjo, explains why photobook publishing was historically important for the dissemination of artistic and activist knowledge.