The Distant Drumbeat: How a War in the Middle East Is Draining Africa’s Growth

In the bustling Gikomba market on the eastern edge of Nairobi, Wanjiru Kamau has sold cooking oil, flour, and maize for nearly two decades. She knows, in the way only a market trader can, when the world has shifted. In early 2026, she felt it again — the kind of creeping, wordless squeeze that no government announcement prepares you for. The cost of transporting her goods had climbed. The flour had quietly grown more expensive.

Her customers were buying less. She did not know about the Strait of Hormuz. She had barely registered the name of the Iranian general whose death had set the region alight in late February. But she felt the war nonetheless — through every extra shilling she paid, and every fewer shillings her neighbours spent.

A Strong Start Reversed

Sub-Saharan Africa had entered 2026 with genuine optimism. The IMF, in its January World Economic Outlook, had projected regional growth accelerating to 4.6 percent across 2026 and 2027, supported by resilient global demand, firm commodity prices, and improving financial conditions. For a continent long accustomed to being buffeted by forces beyond its borders, this felt like solid ground. Then came the war.

In late February 2026, U.S. and Israeli strikes against Iran triggered a chain of events that sent crude oil prices above $100 per barrel and, at points, past $110. Iran’s retaliatory strikes on Gulf neighbours damaged major energy infrastructure and disrupted shipping through the Strait of Hormuz — a passage that ordinarily carries roughly 20 percent of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas. The reverberations spread far beyond the Persian Gulf.

By the time the IMF and World Bank held their Spring Meetings in Washington in mid-April, the mood had changed entirely. The Fund’s April World Economic Outlook revised global growth down to 3.1 percent for 2026. For Sub-Saharan Africa, the regional growth forecast was cut by a cumulative 0.4 percentage points, landing at 4.3 percent and 4.4 percent for 2026 and 2027 respectively — real numbers, but meaningfully lower than the January hopes.

Oil Importers Pay the Heaviest Price

IMF division chief Deniz Igan was direct in her assessment at the Spring Meetings. ‘With the war, we have reduced global growth and softened prices for non-oil commodities,’ she said. ‘And also worse in terms of trade for oil importers.’ In a region as diverse as Sub-Saharan Africa, that distinction matters enormously. Countries like Nigeria — a major oil exporter — gain some buffer from higher crude prices, even as higher fuel and fertiliser costs weigh on their non-oil sectors. Nigeria’s own 2026 growth forecast was trimmed by 0.3 percentage points to 4.1 percent. For the many nations that import the fuel they need to run their economies, there is no such cushion.

The inflationary picture is equally alarming. Median inflation across Sub-Saharan Africa is projected to rise from 3.4 percent in 2025 to 5 percent in 2026 — driven by higher oil prices, soaring fertiliser costs, rising shipping charges, and the threat of fuel shortages. South Africa, already fragile, saw its 2026 growth forecast cut to just 1.0 percent, down from a January projection of 1.4 percent. For a nation wrestling with unemployment above 30 percent, that single decimal point represents millions of lives.

Aid Cuts Compound the Pain

Compounding the crisis is a separate wound inflicted not by any war, but by political decisions in donor capitals. Bilateral foreign aid to Sub-Saharan Africa has been slashed by 16 to 28 percent in 2025, removing a financial buffer that many countries depended on precisely in moments of shock. With global institutions warning that up to 45 million additional people could face acute food insecurity if the war persists and disrupts fertiliser supply chains, that lost aid feels less like a funding line and more like a pulled lifeline.

The IMF has estimated that demand for $20 billion to $50 billion in emergency support for low-income and energy-importing countries is likely in the near term. But with donor governments tightening their belts and the G20 hobbled by geopolitical fractures, the question of who will provide that support remains uncomfortably open.

Numbers Behind the Numbers

In Washington’s conference rooms, economists speak in percentages. In Nairobi’s Gikomba market, Wanjiru Kamau speaks in shillings. Both tell the same story: a continent that did everything right at the start of the year is now being punished for a war it did not choose, fought over energy routes it does not control, with a safety net that is quietly being folded away.

For Africa, the most dangerous conflicts are often the ones nobody bothered to warn it about.