Sub-Saharan Africa’s growth forecast for 2026 was raised to 4.3%, 0.3 percentage points above April’s projection and up from 4.1% in 2025, the World Bank said in its Africa Economic Update published on Tuesday.
The Bank said forecasts were upgraded for nearly three-quarters of countries, including Angola, Ethiopia, Nigeria and Zambia. It projects median inflation will rise to 5.5% in 2026 from 3.7% in 2025 as higher fuel, fertiliser and food prices reverse some recent gains.
The Bank said public debt has broadly stabilised at about 57% of GDP, while high debt-service costs continue to limit spending on health, education and infrastructure. Andrew Dabalen, the Bank’s chief economist for Africa, said the next challenge is turning growth into more jobs and better opportunities.
Median inflation is the middle value across countries, so it describes a typical country rather than the largest economies.
What to watch: South Africa’s September consumer price inflation, due October 21 according to the Reserve Bank’s calendar, after a reading of 4.4%.
Rwanda’s economy grew 9.7% in the first half of 2026 while headline inflation reached 15.7% in August, the IMF said on Tuesday after its staff reached agreement with the authorities on the first review of the country’s 38-month, $250 million Extended Credit Facility.
The IMF attributed the rise in inflation to pre-existing pressures and spillovers from the war in the Middle East. The National Bank of Rwanda’s medium-term target is 5%, and Rwanda’s finance ministry put inflation at 9.2% in February.
The IMF mission ran from September 23 to October 6, and Rwanda would have access to about $35.7 million after Board approval, Rwandan press reports said. A staff-level agreement is a deal between IMF staff and a government that still needs approval from the IMF’s Executive Board before any money is released.
What to watch: The IMF Executive Board is expected to consider the review in December, according to reports of the mission chief’s briefing in Kigali.
Africa’s regulators and companies put petrol at between $1.04 and $1.81 a litre across five markets. South Africa’s energy minister, Gwede Mantashe, said the inland 95 petrol price rises R3.33 ($0.20) to R30.25 ($1.81) a liter from Wednesday.
Kenya’s Energy and Petroleum Regulatory Authority capped super petrol in Nairobi at KSh214.03 ($1.65) for the period to October 14, unchanged. It said the landed cost of imported diesel rose 11.86% over the review period while petrol’s fell 7.87%.
Zambia’s Energy Regulation Board raised petrol 24.4% to K31.46 ($1.59) from October 1, after six months of excise and VAT relief ended.
Ghana’s National Petroleum Authority said it suspended the GH¢1 ($0.09) diesel levy for October and kept refinery selling prices at the previous window’s level to hold diesel below GH¢20 ($1.72).
An industry group, COMAC, projected petrol at GH¢17.91 ($1.54) for that window.
NNPC’s reported Lagos pump price is about N1,385 ($1.04) a litre, and Nigeria’s downstream regulator says it does not fix pump prices.
The IMF said at its October 1 press briefing that refined product prices are 60% to 97% above pre-conflict levels. Landed cost is what imported fuel costs on arrival at port, before taxes, levies and margins.
What to watch: Kenya’s next price review on October 14, and Tanzania’s October price caps, which its regulator, EWURA, has published on the first Wednesday of each month this year.
Nigeria’s Dangote refinery supplied 35.9 million litres a day of petrol in August, 71% of the 50.5 million litres a day received, according to the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority’s August factsheet.
The regulator recorded petrol consumption falling 14%, to 41.5 million litres a day from 48.3 million in July. It reported petrol imports down 26% at 14.6 million litres a day and diesel imports down 84% at 1.3 million litres a day.
The refinery raised its ex-gantry petrol price by N85 ($0.06) to N1,350 ($1.01) a litre on September 12 and cut it by N25 to N1,325 ($1.00) on September 21, according to reports of its price notices. Both moves fall after the period the factsheet covers. The ex-gantry price is what marketers pay at the refinery’s loading point, before depot, transport and retail margins.
What to watch: The refinery’s public offer closes on October 13, according to its prospectus.
African share offers this season are mostly sales by existing owners rather than raises by the companies, and the first two to close drew applications from thousands of ordinary investors.
Four of the six offers sell shares that already exist, so the proceeds go to the seller, and a fifth, MNT-Halan’s in Egypt, is reported to do the same. Angola’s state asset agency sold 34% of Standard Bank de Angola.
Quickmart’s owner, Sokoni Retail Kenya, receives the proceeds of the half it is selling, according to the company’s IPO website. Airtel Money’s London offer consists of existing shares, according to reports of its filing. Bridge Bank Group Côte d’Ivoire’s was a sale of 20% of its capital.
The buyers so far are individuals in large numbers. Bids for Bridge Bank’s offer exceeded the shares available by 42%, and BODIVA said the public tranche of Standard Bank de Angola’s offer was covered almost four times.
The offers still open are priced for small savers, with a minimum application of N5,250 ($4) for Dangote. Where owners set the price, buyers have pushed back. Airtel Money priced at a $7 billion valuation, below the $8 billion to $9 billion reported earlier, and the IFC agreed to buy as a cornerstone investor.
The exception is also the largest offer. The Dangote refinery is selling new shares worth $1.6 billion, the only offer where the company receives the money, and it is not underwritten, which means no bank has guaranteed to buy shares that go unsold.
At the offer price, the enlarged company would be worth about $49 billion, which Sable calculates from the prospectus is about 40% of the Nigerian Exchange’s market capitalisation on September 25. A small slice of shares would therefore carry a large share of the exchange’s value once it lists.
What to watch: Dangote’s offer closes on October 13, and Airtel Money’s shares are due to be admitted in London on October 14. Quickmart needs 75% take-up by October 30 for its offer to succeed.
The Democratic Republic of Congo’s artisanal gold sector drew a $35 million credit facility on Tuesday from SigraFi, a UK-headquartered gold offtake company founded in 2025, which said it will use the money to finance gold supply.
SigraFi buys gold under multi-year contracts from organised artisanal and small-scale mining cooperatives, and has a partnership with PeaceGold covering about 25,000 miners across 11 cooperatives in Ituri Province.
The company has said artisanal and small-scale mining accounts for about 20% of global gold production, up from about 4% in the 1990s. An offtaker agrees in advance to buy a producer’s output, and the facility funds those purchases.
What to watch: disclosure of the lenders and the facility’s terms, which SigraFi’s release does not give.
THE NUMBER WE’RE WATCHING
5.5%
The World Bank’s projection for median inflation in Sub-Saharan Africa in 2026, up from 3.7% in 2025. The IMF reported Rwanda’s headline inflation at 15.7% in August.
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