The UAE's growing influence in Africa
Business Daily
BBC
4.4 • 816 Ratings
🗓️ 8 January 2026
⏱️ 18 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The United Arab Emirates has become the largest state investor in Africa. It's spending billions of dollars across the continent; building ports, power plants and renewable energy projects.
We look at why Emirati companies are expanding so rapidly, and find out how much this investment is reshaping economies.
If you'd like to get in touch with the programme, our email address is businessdaily@bbc.co.uk
Presented and produced by Sameer Hashmi
(Picture: General view of Berbera Port and Bebera city in Somaliland in the Horn of Africa, on 31st August 2021. Dubai-based port operator DP World and the Government of Somaliland, opened a container terminal at Berbera Port in June 2021. Credit: Getty Images)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts. |
| 0:07.5 | Hello and welcome to Business Daily from the BBC World Service. I'm Samir Hashmi in Dubai. |
| 0:13.4 | Today we look at how the United Arab Emirates has become the largest state investor in Africa in recent years. |
| 0:19.2 | For the last five years, the EU pledged around $110 billion. |
| 0:23.5 | We start small. |
| 0:24.6 | You don't start with the big projects. |
| 0:26.4 | And you need to test the ground. |
| 0:28.0 | You need to understand the market. |
| 0:29.9 | And you need to see who are the main players as well or the main beneficiaries from those |
| 0:34.1 | investments that you do. |
| 0:36.1 | How are African nations benefiting from using this new wave of Gulf investment? |
| 0:40.2 | We want to diversify the economy at a really fast pace. |
| 0:45.2 | The thing is, oil and gas still has weight in our economy that accounts for around 20% of |
| 0:51.5 | the country GDP. |
| 0:52.7 | It creates opportunities, but also challenges. |
| 0:56.2 | And what's in it for Emirati companies on the ground? |
| 0:58.7 | What is our ambition in Africa is really to remove a lot of the obstacles in the logistics today |
| 1:04.6 | and make basically cost of logistics and shipping much cheaper than what it is today. |
| 1:10.7 | Plus, we look at allegations of our illicit African gold flowing into Dubai, |
| 1:15.1 | claims that the UAE strongly denies. |
| 1:17.6 | That's the growing relationship between the UAE and Africa. |
| 1:20.9 | All coming up on today's business daily. |
... |
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