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Our development cooperation in Africa

Africa is our agency’s main partner region, and it is where we carry out most of our work. With 120 international technical experts deployed to the continent and 162 national and regional projects across the continent – totalling €1.1 billion in business volume in 2025 – our work contributes directly to France’s inclusive and sustainable investment strategy for aid and development in Africa. It also dovetails with the European Union’s Global Gateway initiative.
We implement high-impact, multisector cooperation projects in Africa, addressing the full range of sustainable development challenges and key areas of the transformational agenda. These include support for culture and the creative industry, heritage and memory initiatives, entrepreneurship and innovation, vocational training, sports, and agriculture. Our work draws on a wide network of stakeholders and adapts to Africa’s geographic realities for more targeted and effective cooperation.
7 in-country offices in Africa
We operate 7 in-country offices in Africa in Comoros, Côte d’Ivoire, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Guinea, Madagascar, Rwanda, and Tunisia/Libya.
We also have five regional offices in North, West, and East Africa, the Indian Ocean, and Southern Africa.
Our work in Africa
Our work on the African continent reflects a renewed partnership based on six strategic priorities:
- Strengthen democratic, economic and financial governance: We help public administrations and civil society stakeholders in fulfilling their commitments to transparency. We are also a recognised partner for countries and organisations in need of expertise in domestic resource mobilisation and the fight against illicit financial flows across the continent.
- Climate, biodiversity and the blue economy: Climate action and biodiversity protection are among our top priorities. We carry out initiatives to help sub-Saharan cities develop renewable energy policies and sustainable climate strategies, as well as to promote the development of a sustainable blue, green, and circular economy.
- Regional integration and strategic corridors: We work to advance key pan-African priorities by supporting the continent’s regional organisations. This includes promoting and strengthening intra-African trade and strategic corridors, while also fostering regional African integration through improved availability of high-quality statistical data.
- Training and employment: Another focus area of our work in Africa is boosting training and the labour market, whether in traditional sectors or in services and entrepreneurship (especially in the digital sector). This ensures that training programmes align with market needs, in order to improve young people’s access to employment.
- Comprehensive approach to migration: We work towards safe, dignified, regulated migration by building the capacities of institutions and stakeholders involved in migration management. This involves regionalising migration policies, reducing gender inequalities among migrant populations, combating human trafficking, and ensuring the successful reintegration of returning citizens.
- Entrepreneurship, culture and the creative industries: We support a dynamic and innovative economy across the continent by promoting the cultural and creative industries as well as digital entrepreneurship, especially among women and young people. This includes backing entrepreneurial ecosystems and implementing green economy initiatives. We also assist partner countries in enhancing their cultural heritage and renovating national and local museums, which drive local attractiveness and promote shared values.
Discover the testimony of Lesley Donna Williams, CEO of Tshimologong Digital Innovation Hub
Our work in each subregion
Expertise France's actions in Africa is structured around six subregions: North Africa, West Africa, East Africa, Central Africa, Southern Africa and the Indian Ocean.
In Tunisia and Libya, we operate an established in-country office in Tunis (since 2019) with over 110 staff managing 19 national projects on migration, innovation and entrepreneurship. Since 2025, we’ve expanded into Libya with a new office in Tripoli.
In Morocco, our regional office in Rabat acquired a project support unit in 2025. We lead four national programmes in areas such as social protection, biodiversity, migration and green finance, in partnership with the Agence Française de Développement (AFD).
In Egypt, we focus on social protection and public financial systems aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Nine international technical experts are currently deployed across Tunisia (4) and Egypt (5), with new positions being created in Egypt (4) and Morocco (2).
West Africa is our agency’s largest area of activity, with 60 national projects totalling €511 million in business volume (excluding multi-country initiatives). We are particularly active in Côte d’Ivoire and Guinea, where we implement projects on governance, security, health, vocational training, entrepreneurship and culture, with 75% of funding coming from the EU and 21% from AFD.
In terms of security, we support EU-funded initiatives in Côte d’Ivoire, Benin and Togo to counter threats in the Gulf of Guinea’s coastal states via capacity building of local security forces.
Shifts in the Sahel have brought about a reshuffle of our agency’s project portfolio. We are now increasingly active in East and Central Africa, with our West-African work focusing on Guinea and Côte d’Ivoire, where we opened two in-country offices in 2024.
We are also expanding our development aid into Africa’s English-speaking countries. We are running projects in Ghana and Nigeria on health, urban planning and the creative industries, as well as in Sierra Leone and Liberia. This is in cooperation with EU-led programmes.
We have 16 national projects in this region totalling €96 million (excluding multi-country projects).
We have been active in East Africa since 2016, especially in Ethiopia and Rwanda, our main countries of operation in the region. We operate in these States through national projects (in the heritage, economic and financial governance, health and stabilisation sectors), as well as programmes to support the African Union (deployment of experts in the AU bodies, support for agencies in democratic governance and health).
With the resumption of Franco-Rwandan cooperation and the signing of a host nation agreement in 2022, our project portfolio in Rwanda has expanded significantly, leading to the opening of an in-country office in September 2024. Our agency is also present in Burundi and Kenya, and we have a regional office in Nairobi. In Ethiopia, where development cooperation is well established, we plan to open an in-country office in 2026. Our work in the region is financed by the EU (69%) and AFD (22%).
With 22 projects totalling €126 million (excluding multi-country initiatives), we support governments and their institutions in strengthening economic, social and environmental policy. We work closely with local and international partners, particularly in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), where we opened an in-country office in 2024.
Our focus areas include:
- Governance and the rule of law (judiciary support, the fight against corruption, decentralisation)
- Security (capacity building for local security forces and stability initiatives)
- Health (systems strengthening, training, coordination)
- Economic development (entrepreneurship, vocational training, job creation)
Our work in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is diverse and covers all SDGs. Our project portfolio in the DRC is mainly funded by AFD (76%), with Expertise France acting as the project implementation agency.
Other projects are being run in the DRC and Cameroon on economic and financial governance, culture, and decentralisation. Several programmes will be implemented in coordination with the EU in 2025. The region’s funding is 70% AFD and 25% EU.
In Southern Africa, our six national projects total €32.3 million (excluding multi-country projects). We carry out targeted actions in South Africa, Mozambique, Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Angola, where cooperation on high-level projects is growing.
Our agency works on priority areas such as:
- Financial governance and the fight against corruption
- Rule of law and institutional support
- Public health and risk prevention
- Vocational training and youth employment
Angola has become an increasingly vital location, thanks to solid partnerships and a shared determination to see through current reform projects. This work has been carried out in close cooperation with the EU, the AFD Group and local institutional stakeholders. Given the dynamic development cooperation in Angola, we have decided to open an in-country office in Angola in 2026.
The projects in Mozambique and Botswana focus on governance and culture. Zambia will host a circular economy initiative in Lusaka in partnership with the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA). And in Zimbabwe, we are providing support to the honey industry. The EU funds 98% of these projects.
The Indian Ocean is one of our busiest regions. We have a strong presence there on the ground through our in-country offices in Comoros and Madagascar and are establishing our presence in Mauritius. This further solidifies our agency’s presence in the region, enabling us to implement both national and regional programmes with a vast range of stakeholders.
In the Indian Ocean, we work hand-in-hand with stakeholders from various diaspora, who contribute significantly to innovation, entrepreneurship and multilateral dialogue. We also focus heavily on climate action and biodiversity conservation. The Indian Ocean portfolio totals around €90 million.

Our framework for action
Our work in Africa is aligned with the priorities set by the French President during the Presidential Council for Development (May 2023), the Interministerial Committee for International Cooperation and Development (July 2023), as well as within the framework of the renewal of Franco-African relations following the 2021 New Africa-France Summit.
These frameworks reaffirm the goal of “supporting innovation and African entrepreneurship as a shared path for youth in Africa and Europe”, as stated during the Presidential Council for International Partnerships (2025).
For further reading
Our projects in Africa
PADGL - Support for decentralisation in Tunisia
Closed
2016 - 2018
Funders : Agence Française de Développement



Our news in Africa



Key figures 2025
- 162 projects underway totalling €1.1 billion in multi-year funding
- 7 in-country offices
- 5 regional offices
- 60% of all our work is carried out in Africa