In the past 16 months, “seismic changes have moved the world,” said the “Where to Invest in Africa 2025/26” report by RMB.
The main factor influencing investment prospects across the continent is “the change in U.S. trade policy,” the report said. “Record-high reciprocal tariffs across many economies are transforming global trade in a way that will potentially outlast the current U.S. administration. This is not business as usual.”
For Egyptian companies planning to invest in Africa, understanding which nations have the greatest potential and the least business, geopolitical and geoeconomic risks is crucial for success.
Aid, politics, economics
In early 2025, the United States stopped nearly all foreign aid and disbanded USAID, forcing African governments to adapt quickly. “Africa is ‘addicted to aid,’ but some countries are more dependent than others,” the report stated. “The rapid repeal of aid has opened funding gaps.”
This situation compelled African governments to increase “investment flows … to fill the currency deficit,” said the report. In 2024, FDI to the continent reached record highs, “up 75% from 2023 … South Africa, Morocco, and Tunisia were among the main FDI recipients.”
More FDI is expected. “The size and improvement of the investment flows translate into a strong positive development for the continent,” said the report. “While aid has its role, it is not a component of the economic engine that grows enduring prosperity.”
National election results greatly impact the investment climate in African countries, as new leadership often replaces previous policies and strategies with its own plans to tackle macroeconomic issues, especially national debt.
A third factor shaping the continent’s investment outlook is commodity prices, which are “central to Africa’s economic performance,” the report stated. Net-oil exporting countries like Nigeria and Angola suffered from “energy prices drifting lower [prior to the start of the war in Iran], softening export revenues,” the RMB report noted. Elsewhere, “industrial slowdowns weighed on base metals, where [commodity and energy] price movements were mixed.”
Despite these challenges, some African nations benefited. “Cocoa prices more than tripled on the back of devastating crop failures in West Africa, bringing windfall profits to producers,” the report said. “A powerful cycle for gold, driven by geopolitical tensions and investor flight to safety, has provided windfall for producers across the continent, including Burkina Faso, Ghana, South Africa, and Tanzania.”
The fourth factor is “currency devaluations, [which] can undergo vast and rapid changes,” the report noted. That complicates foreign assessments of investment viability, costs, pricing, and repatriation.
Meanwhile, data remains a major concern. First, there are “data restatements, [where] in several industries the publishers of data have restated metrics. This happens periodically, for example, when national statistics are restated or revised.” This issue also present with “the most reliable sources, from the U.N. [and] World Bank,” the report noted.
Second, “data availability is incomplete in some countries,” the report said. Third, “not all [available] metrics are updated annually, [especially] connectedness, commodity reliance, and financial development. The latter two are sub-components of the forex stability and liquidity index metric.”
Stability
The 2025/2026 RMB rankings showed 17 of the 31 evaluated African countries either remained the same or moved up one spot. “The Seychelles and Mauritius remain at the top of the rankings.” “This is not to suggest they are … the ‘best’ places to invest,” the report cautioned. “Rather, their scores reflect small but appealing markets.”
Other nations with unchanged rankings were South Africa, Ghana, and Morocco at the higher end of the scale. The lower half features Uganda, Gabon, Madagascar, Malawi, and Zimbabwe.
Meanwhile, countries whose rankings increased or decreased by one position are Kenya, Botswana, Rwanda, Namibia, Angola, Cameroon, and Eswatini.
In decline
Nigeria experienced the largest decline, falling to 18th from 9th in the 2023/2024 report. “[That] may be directly the result of low GDP figures in U.S. dollar terms,” as the government floated the local currency (naira) to address the parallel currency market. The naira’s exchange rate went from 460 to the dollar before the float in June 2023 to nearly 1,380 at press time.
Senegal dropped six places amid election turmoil in 2024 and ongoing food security concerns stemming from its heavy dependence on Russia. “The country relies on imports for 70% of its food supplies, and rising costs and the disruption of supply chains are threatening food security,” the report said.
Adding to Senegal’s challenges is that “Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger withdrew from the Economic Community of Western African States [free trade agreement] in January 2024,” the report noted.
However, in October 2024, “Senegal exited the Financial Action Task Force [an international body that investigates money laundering] grey list.” The same month saw the government release a 25-year development plan, Vision 2050, targeting an “increase of 50% in per capita income … and a reduction in debt and deficit,” the report said. “The intention is to transform Senegal’s wealth by integrating digital technologies … to create jobs.”
Mozambique fell from 23rd in 2024 to 28th in 2025. “National elections in … 2024 were tense, prompting the outbreak of civil unrest,” the report noted. “Peace [was] brokered, but underlying tensions remain … The difficulties are deep-seated.”
Despite these issues, the IMF forecasts “exceptional growth of 13% in 2027 and 12% in 2028 … based on production commencing on large onshore liquefied natural gas projects.”
Other countries whose rankings dropped noticeably include Tunisia (five places), Benin (three places), and Lesotho (two places).
Improvers
Côte d’Ivoire stood out as the biggest climber in the ranking … jumping from 16th to 8th” driven by the country’s strong economic prospects, with an average real GDP growth of 6.7% from 2021 to 2025.
While there have not been any significant improvements in agricultural productivity, in fact, cocoa production the country’ s biggest export crop was down 25% in 2024 compared to 2023, the real change has been in the government’s ambition to export more complex products, the report said.
Another high-potential crop for investment is cashew nuts. The government aims to increase the processing of the nut from 30% of the total cultivated volume in 2024 to 50% by 2030.
This economic acceleration is thanks to “government incentives … including no import duties levied on machinery and government subsidies for processed nuts exports, the report said.
Zambia is another significant climber, jumping five places to 15th. This is a story of resilience despite severe woes,” the report noted. Zambia recently came through its driest agricultural season in 30 years, which prompted [the] president to declare a state of disaster in February 2024.
Besides food security concerns, the drought crippled the country’s energy supply, which relies on hydroelectricity for 83% of its generation, the report noted.
Despite these issues, Zambia’s GDP grew 4% in 2024, driven by a 12% boost in investment in copper mining and exports. Copper prices increased by 41% in 2025 up to this point.
The country is also accelerating structural reforms under an IMF program, which agreed to immediately disburse $184 million to Zambia.” Reforms aim to “collect more taxes and conclude restructuring agreements with bilateral and commercial creditors,” said the report. “Moody’ s upgraded the sovereign credit outlook from stable to positive in April 2025, citing expectations of a steadily decreasing government debt burden driven by stronger economic growth and continued fiscal consolidation.
Algeria and Tanzania each moved up three places in the rankings, while Ethiopia, Congo, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo each gained two.
Ultimately, the RMB report emphasized that Africa is on track to achieve what Nigeria’s former Minister of Agriculture and Food Security Akinwumi Adesina predicted last May: “Africa will be the workshop of the world, brimming with talents, with opportunities for its young people.”
