From a gusher of Saudi money to the rise of global remote workers.
Get ready for Saudi Arabia to move deeper into Africa, from Ethiopia to Zambia, a trend that will accelerate in 2026. The kingdom has pledged to pump USD 41 billion into African investments and export financing, which would turn one of the world’s largest oil producers into a major player on the continent.
Zambia, with more land area than France, is among the countries on the Saudi radar, for its food production potential from vast farmlands and immense reserves of minerals such as copper and nickel for the green energy transition. Business and government delegations are moving between the countries. Zambia’s planned connection to the Atlantic Ocean port of Lobito in Angola via a rail and investment corridor sweetens the country’s appeal.
Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030, championed by the country’s Public Investment Fund, prioritizes agriculture, mining and renewable energy for investment in Africa, fed by the gusher of cash generated from its energy riches and diversifying economy. S&P Global estimates that “non-oil activity” generated about 57 percent of Saudi GDP in 2025. At home, Saudi capital is moving into mining, tourism, health care and property development.
In Africa, the most serious government-level commitment so far is with Egypt, which signed a bilateral investment treaty with the Saudis that came into force in June 2025. Interest is building to the south, too. In Addis Ababa in November, Ethiopia and Saudi Arabia organized an investment forum and established the Ethio-Saudi Business Council to coordinate on investments that may span agriculture and manufacturing.
Saudi investors are tapping into African expertise as the investment push gathers steam. Former Senegalese economy minister Amadou Hott, a candidate in 2025 for president of the African Development Bank, recently joined Vision Invest, a Saudi investment holding company aligned with Vision 2030, as chair of its Africa advisory board.
Ethiopian climbs
In 2026, Ethiopian Airlines will celebrate its 80th anniversary, a reminder of its longevity as a pathbreaking global brand for Africa that connects the major cities of the continent – and the continent to the world’s capitals of money and political power.
In the past 15 years, except for a two-year dip during the pandemic, Africa’s biggest airline has boomed, growing revenue and passengers almost seven-fold. Traffic is climbing so fast that in the 2030s the airline plans to shift its hub to a new airport to be developed in Bishoftu, 25 miles from Addis Ababa.
Ethiopian made its first passenger flight on April 8, 1946, from Addis Ababa to Cairo with a stop in Asmara, then under British military control and today the capital of independent Eritrea. Those first passengers flew on a refitted American military plane, the Douglas C-47 Skytrain, a version of the workhorse DC-3.
The Ethiopian government financed the airline, while managers from America’s TWA ran the new operation. America had confidence that the Ethiopians could perform. Emperor Haile Selassie had secretly allowed the Allies to operate an aircraft maintenance facility in Ethiopia for combat operations in North Africa, according to Boeing, Ethiopian’s longtime aviation partner.
In 2026, about 55,000 people on average each day will settle into their seats aboard an Ethiopian flight headed to one of 155 destinations worldwide – 131 outside Ethiopia, including four in the United States alone. For Indians, Chinese, and quite a few Americans and Europeans, their first journey into Africa will be on an Ethiopian flight.
AI spreads in Africa
A 2026 trends story would be incomplete without a look at artificial intelligence, the buzzword of 2025 in every corner of the global economy. In America, building massive AI data-crunching centers is top priority. In Africa, from Kenya to Nigeria, cheap and easy access to AI models and know-how is the focus in 2026.
“For AI to reach its full potential, it must be accessible,” Josh Woodward, vice president of Google Labs and Gemini, wrote in November. “Across the continent, two major hurdles hold back adoption: the cost of tools and the fear of ‘running out of data.'”
Google is partnering with Cassava Technologies to enable African users to access the Gemini AI chatbot app without using mobile data. That resembles a strategy that Facebook deployed in the past decade to scale across Africa, by offering a data-free, limited version of its social media platform.
Meanwhile, Microsoft is supporting the research lab Lelapa AI to create what the tech giant calls “Africa’s first multilingual AI small language model,” which involves Swahili, Yoruba, Hausa and other languages.
Building an AI-savvy group of early adopters across business and government on the agenda in places like Africa’s most populous country. Working with the Nigerian government and Lagos Business School, Microsoft says it has reached 350,000 Nigerians with training on agentic AI, analytics and other skills. These efforts by the world’s biggest tech companies signal a consequential scale up of AI in Africa in the year ahead.
Africa’s global workforce
Some of those leading-edge users of AI in Africa will be found among the growing ranks of remote digital workers, bringing home bigger incomes by serving clients around the world. Africa’s digital workforce is growing at double-digit rates.
Demand is rising in customer support, data analytics, marketing and graphic design, according to Talenteum, a digital marketplace that connects remote workers to clients.
Morocco as Africa gateway
In North Africa, Morocco is grabbing the spotlight. While located far from the high-growth East African economies of Ethiopia, Rwanda and Uganda, Morocco shares their orientation toward global markets, industrial investment and green economy ambition.
Morocco is strengthening ties with Europe through a new port on the Mediterranean and energy flows. The Nador West Med port near the Strait of Gibraltar may open ahead of schedule this year. Morocco also aspires to become the trade gateway on the Atlantic for the Sahel, including Mauritania and landlocked countries such as Mali.
Two months ago, the United States pushed through a historic shift in northwestern Africa – elevating Morocco as an emerging power on the continent. On October 31, the 15-nation United Nations Security Council approved the American-drafted Resolution 2797, which backed Morocco’s 2007 proposal to negotiate autonomy in the Western Sahara, a disputed region between Morocco and Mauritania claimed by the Sahrawis, indigenous separatists backed by Algeria.
The African Union has long recognized Western Sahara as a member state: the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic.
This UN shift acknowledges facts on the ground. Morocco is building a USD 1.2 billion deep-water port in the Western Sahara at Dakhla under its Royal Atlantic Initiative. Mauritania could use the port, too, for exporting carbon-free “green” steel from its massive iron ore deposits and green hydrogen, produced using its abundant wind and solar energy.
Morocco also is shifting fast toward renewable energy, aiming to generate most of its electricity from clean sources by 2030 as it cuts its reliance on imported coal and gas. Eventually, Morocco wants to export green hydrogen to Europe as solar and wind energy scales in the kingdom. For now, it’s tourists who seek the sun: Morocco overtook Egypt a year ago to become Africa’s top destination.
Cover photo: Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, prime minister of Saudi Arabia, by Saudi Press Agency via Wikimedia CC 4.0.