Wirtschaftsmotor
≈2.5Bcontinent-wide population projected for 2050, including Egypt
- Young population
- Fast urbanization
- Jobs · schools · power
- ≈1.5Bpeople continent-wide, including Egypt
- ≈19median age
- ≈¼of humanity projected by 2050
Afrika
Aktuelle Nachrichten
Macht und Institutionen
16.2%of African exports went to other African countries in 2022
African Union
- AfCFTATrading began in 2021
- ECOWASWest Africa
- EACEast Africa
- SADCSouthern Africa
Spannungspunkte
≈600Mpeople still lack electricity
- Critical mineralsCobalt · platinum · gold
- Transport costsAmong the world's highest
- Sahel insurgenciesSpread from Mali after 2012
- 2020–23 coupsMilitary rule returned in four states
- Bloc ruptureThree states left ECOWAS in 2025
Länder auf einen Blick
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North Africa (Maghreb)
North Africa (Maghreb)
Arabic- and Amazigh-speaking states along the Mediterranean and Sahara — plus Sudan on the Nile — tied as closely to Europe and the Middle East as to the rest of the continent.
Quellen:1West Africa
West Africa
East Africa & the Horn
East Africa & the Horn
From the Nile headwaters and the Ethiopian highlands to the Swahili coast — the East African Community's integration project sits beside the Horn's contested politics and Red Sea approaches.
Quellen:1Central Africa
Central Africa
The Congo Basin — the world's second-largest rainforest — and the mineral belts around it, where enormous resource wealth coexists with some of the continent's longest-running conflicts.
Quellen:1Southern Africa
Southern Africa
The continent's most industrialized corner, organized around South Africa's economy and SADC's trade and infrastructure corridors, with mineral wealth from platinum to diamonds and copper.
Quellen:1Wichtige Institutionen
African Union (AU)
Continental union of 55 member states, founded in 2002 as the successor to the Organisation of African Unity and headquartered in Addis Ababa. It coordinates peace and security, mediates crises, suspends members after unconstitutional changes of government, and since 2023 sits in the G20 as a permanent member.
Quellen:1African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA)
AU-sponsored free-trade area signed by 54 of 55 member states (all but Eritrea); trading under the agreement formally began on 1 January 2021. The world's largest free-trade area by country count, it aims to phase out tariffs on about 90 percent of goods across a market of some 1.4 billion people.
Quellen:1Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS)
West African bloc founded in 1975, headquartered in Abuja, providing free movement of people, a regional court, and crisis intervention forces. The military governments of Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger formally left the bloc in 2025, regrouping as the Alliance of Sahel States.
Quellen:1East African Community (EAC)
Eight partner states — Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, South Sudan, the DR Congo (joined 2022), and Somalia (joined 2024) — operating a customs union and common market, with political federation as a stated long-term goal.
Quellen:1Southern African Development Community (SADC)
Sixteen-member bloc headquartered in Gaborone, established in 1992, coordinating trade, infrastructure corridors, and regional security; it has deployed joint standby forces, including to Mozambique's Cabo Delgado province.
Quellen:1