# UAE and Saudi Arabia Vie for African Influence as Gulf Rivalry Intensifies
The Gulf states are locked in a fierce geopolitical and economic struggle for influence across Africa, with the United Arab Emirates emerging as the continent’s single largest investor while Saudi Arabia scrambles to catch up — and the competition is reshaping the political landscape from the Horn of Africa to the Sahel.
## A $110 Billion Head Start
Between 2019 and 2023, Emirati companies announced a staggering $110 billion worth of projects across Africa, with over $70 billion channelled into renewable energy developments alone. The UAE has woven itself into the fabric of African infrastructure: state-owned DP World now manages six ports across the continent, including strategic locations in Egypt’s Red Sea coast, Somaliland’s Berbera port, and a controversial $6 billion plan — cancelled in 2024 — to develop a port at Abu Amama in Sudan.
Saudi Arabia, meanwhile, announced in 2024 that it expected its investments in Africa’s private sector to reach around $25 billion within a decade. As of 2023, total Saudi investments in Africa had surpassed $13 billion, with 47 Saudi companies operating on the continent.
The disparity stems from fundamentally different development models. While Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 was designed primarily to transform the domestic economy, the UAE — smaller and less resource-rich — was compelled to look outward from the very beginning. “Their development required more outward investments and a greater external diplomatic effort,” explained Cameron Hudson, a former White House director for African affairs now at 54 Advisors in Washington.
## The Horn of Africa: A Fault Line
Nowhere is the UAE-Saudi rivalry more pronounced than in the Horn of Africa, where the two powers have increasingly found themselves on opposite sides of complex conflicts.
“The UAE has provided support for the RSF in Sudan, which was starting to cause a schism between the Saudis and the UAE because they were on the opposite sides of that battle,” said David Shinn, a former US ambassador to Ethiopia. “They seem to be taking differing positions on Ethiopia-Eritrea, which could create further problems for their relationships. I am not entirely convinced they are on the same page in Somalia.”
Even in Yemen, where both countries nominally supported the same internationally recognised government, their approaches diverged sharply: the UAE relied heavily on Rapid Support Forces troops while Saudi Arabia used its own air power and funding.
The Red Sea has become the most contested waterway in this contest. “To be a regional power you have to have a military presence on that water and, to have a military presence, you need to have port access,” Hudson noted.
## Growing African Scepticism
The UAE’s deep pockets have not come without costs. Its willingness to back non-state actors, its perceived closeness to Israel through the Abraham Accords, and what Hudson described as a “nakedly self-serving approach” have generated friction in several African countries where Emirati companies operate.
There is also the question of political vacuum in Riyadh. Benjamin Augé, a researcher at the Africa Centre of the French Institute of International Relations in Paris, noted that no single political figure currently organises Saudi Arabia’s Africa policy — there is no state minister for African relations, a position that existed until 2023.
“The Saudi government was notably pushing to open new embassies in the SADC region to promote business relations in mining, for example, but civil servants are taking a relatively long time to implement these decisions,” Augé said.
## Saudi Arabia’s Window of Opportunity
Despite the UAE’s commanding lead, analysts see an opening for Riyadh. African publics have grown wary of Emirati interventionism, and the UAE’s perceived proximity to Israel — at a time when sympathy for the Palestinian cause remains deep across the continent — has not gone unnoticed.
“What is happening in Iran right now, and what has happened in Gaza over the last several years, makes this a much more important issue for African publics that I am not sure the Emiratis have fully appreciated yet,” Hudson said.
Saudi funding initiatives are beginning to materialise. In 2025, the Islamic Development Bank — with Saudi Arabia as its largest shareholder at 22.5 percent — signed an $800 million financing deal with Uganda covering infrastructure and trade projects, and announced a $3 billion lending programme for Algeria over three years.
Whether such initiatives can meaningfully dent the UAE’s sprawling commercial and political network across Africa remains to be seen. What is clear is that the battle for the continent is no longer being fought solely between global superpowers — two Gulf neighbours are now central protagonists in their own right.