Africa was 18% of the world's people in 2023 but under 4% of global CO2 emissions

The IMF's October 2026 World Economic Outlook projects nine African economies to grow 5.9% or faster in 2026, led by Ethiopia at 9.2%.

Africa handled about two-thirds of the world's mobile money value in 2025 and held most of its accounts, far ahead of every other region.

Africa's population has grown more than sixfold since 1950 and is set to near 2.5 billion by 2050 on UN World Population Prospects 2024 figures.

Africa trades far less within its own borders than Europe, Asia or the Americas do, and the AfCFTA is meant to close that gap.

The ten largest African economies by nominal GDP in current US dollars, with South Africa, Egypt and Nigeria at the top, on latest World Bank data.

The under-5 mortality rate in Sub-Saharan Africa has dropped by about 60 percent since 1990, one of the clearest good-news trends in African demographics.

About 955 million people in Sub-Saharan Africa still cooked with wood, charcoal, dung or kerosene in 2023, and the rural-urban gap is wide.

Two West African countries lead global cocoa bean production by a wide margin, with Côte d'Ivoire alone growing more than a third of the world's beans.

The share of Sub-Saharan Africans with electricity access has climbed from 26% in 2000 to 55% in 2024, but population growth kept the number without power near 600 million.

Where foreign direct investment landed in Africa in 2025, showing the top recipient economies by inflows in US dollars.

General government gross debt as a share of GDP for nine African economies in 2024, from Sudan at the extreme to DR Congo at the low end.

Africa has the lowest internet-use rate of any world region, roughly half the global average, though the share has risen fast from 25% in 2019.

Average life expectancy at birth across Africa has climbed by more than 22 years since 1960, though it still trails the world average of 73 years.

Recorded remittance inflows to Sub-Saharan Africa rose from US$42 billion in 2017 to an estimated US$54 billion in 2023, after a slight dip from 2022.

Africa's total installed renewable electricity capacity rose from about 37 GW in 2016 to 82.4 GW at the end of 2025, more than doubling in a decade.

Africa's main external trading partners by share of its total external trade (exports plus imports) in 2024, with the EU bloc ahead of China, the United States and India.

The share of Africa's population living in urban areas has climbed steadily since 1990 and United Nations projections show it passing half the continent before 2040.