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Analysis in brief: The United Nations continues its history of developmental and security support in Africa in 2025. The trilateral alliance with the African Union, the European Union and the United Nations on policy implementation will boost the number and effectiveness of programmes directed at key issues like climate change initiatives. Furthermore, the United Nations’ work will continue to be the essential heart of international support for Africa.

United Nations (UN) and African relations fall into three categories. The first is security. UN peacekeeping missions to unstable parts of Africa are ongoing, except in Somalia, where a new African Union (AU) initiative launched on 1 January, 2025, the African Union Support and Stabilisation Mission in Somalia (AUSSOM), has been put in place to help secure the fragile nation. The second thread in African-UN relations is environmental policy, comprising food security, migration, economic development, disaster mitigation and environmental issues. This category particularly focuses on climate change and the means to finance these policies. Third, the UN and Africa are closer to elevating the African voice in the world body. This is evidenced by joint African Union (AU) and UN initiatives and both bodies’ desire to pursue narrative diplomacy by granting an African UN member state a permanent chair on the UN Security Council.

Analysis in brief: The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam was built for electricity generation. By this measure, the project has been a short-term success, but in the long-term, environmental concerns arise. Proactive mitigation efforts are underway to ensure that climate change will not render the dam obsolete.

The environmental costs of most proposed dams, as well as financial considerations and engineering challenges, tend to make any new dam project controversial. For Ethiopia, the degree of controversy when it announced plans to dam the Nile River for hydroelectric generation led to Egypt and Sudan inferring warfare to secure their water rights.

Analysis in brief: Commercial activity at any African port is a direct gauge of the host nation’s trade health and a broader indicator of its foreign alliances – whether regional, continental or international. The African Continental Free Trade Area is becoming a reality, evidenced by the changing shipping routes around the continent.

Seaports provide an infrastructure snapshot of a country’s economic activity at any given time. The volume of vessels that leave ports, their destinations and their types of cargo can reveal much about a country’s agricultural outputs, industrial activities, and even employment fortunes. In late 2025, after the US implemented higher trade tariffs on 8 August 2025, African exports to the US were greatly reduced, compelling African nations on their ongoing search for new markets, both through intra-Africa trade and overseas. Changing shipping patterns will affect port infrastructures; however, these shifts in international markets can take time to develop into a full picture.

Analysis in brief: China and India are leading efforts to shift African trade away from the US, following the imposition of Washington’s tariffs on African goods in 2025. Russia, too, is positioning itself to expand bilateral trade with the continent.

African trade links with China, India and Russia are not new. Each has been growing steadily since the BRICS trade bloc was established in 2009, an intergovernmental organisation comprising Brazil, India, China, Russia, and South Africa, among others. What is new in 2025 is the imposition of tariffs on African goods, reducing the continent’s access to US markets. There are exceptions because US manufacturers covet Africa’s natural resources like rare earth minerals. For the rest of Africa’s products, Washington’s tariffs range from 15% on Ghanaian goods to 30% on South African goods and 50% on Lesotho goods.

Analysis in brief: Africa’s digital transformation is being pushed by demand from businesses and ordinary citizens, whose needs in the modern electronic world can only be met by internet connectivity. Like all infrastructure, the digital realm begins with policies that guide development, training to develop skilled workforces, and technologies to access this digital space. Throughout Africa, digital policymaking and infrastructure development is being led by some high-profile initiatives.

That Africa’s digital connectivity stood at 34% in 2024 is not due to a lack of interest from Africans. Less than four out of every 10 Africans had internet access at this time, despite it being increasingly vital for communication, education, entertainment, finances and health needs. Policies and investments have not stimulated the growth of digital public infrastructure (DPI) needed for such connectivity. However, governmental policymaking, promoted by the Digital Trade Protocol of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), is largely in place now throughout Africa. Now that all African nations are members of the AfCFTA, digital policymaking is advancing. Guided by such policies, investment is following.

Analysis in brief: African nations are focused on a goal of energy self-sufficiency, striving to achieve this task with government policies and enthusiastic private investment. Inefficiencies in existing oil refining operations are also being addressed to ensure nations’ energy security as new large-scale projects go online or are announced with increasing frequency.

Africa’s oil refining industry is characterised by a mix of established facilities and new projects of unprecedented scale. While Nigeria leads in new refinery investment, South Africa has an established and sizeable refinery capacity to build on, the largest being ENREF and Sapref’s refineries in Durban. Like other African countries, South Africa is expanding its refining capacity by rehabilitating older facilities, not exclusively building new ones.

Analysis in brief: China’s efforts to position its currency, the yuan, as a rival to the US dollar in international transactions, have gained traction in Africa. African governments and private sectors are increasingly using the yuan, driven partly by growing Chinese investments in Africa and partly by a broader shift away from dependence on the US.

African governments are not replacing their national currencies with the Chinese yuan, nor are they formally linking their currencies to it or joining its currency, the renminbi (RMB). Although the Yuan is a measure of the renminbi, yuan is often used by non-Chinese in preference to the more cumbersome renminbi or RMB. While the usage of the yuan in Africa in preference to the US dollar in Africa is not an immediate likelihood, China’s formal invitation to African nations to join its yuan-based cross-border payment system has elicited interest from African central banks. Beijing aims to internationalise the yuan and reduce reliance on the US dollar in global financial transactions.

Analysis in brief: Africa is assessing the impact of the recent conflict on African economic and security interests, which have been thrown into confusion by a clash between its two allies, Iran and Israel. Although neither country has a strong presence in Africa, both wish for closer ties. Those ambitions are on hold as their military confrontation continues.

A surprise Israeli attack on Iranian military and nuclear facilities on 13 June 2025 began the latest Middle East escalation. Iran responded with drone and missile attacks that managed to penetrate Israel’s defence shields and claimed multiple lives. Ceasefire pacts have been broken, and there is no end in sight for hostilities. As with any international conflict, nations far away from the theatre of battle consider the economic and diplomatic toll they might possibly encounter. For Africa, energy and shipping considerations are the foremost concerns.