Canada and Africa

Your ideas for strengthening Canada-Africa ties

Do you have a connection to Africa and thoughts on Global Affairs Canada’s engagement with Africa, including on how Canada could expand its trade and economic ties with African partners? Global Affairs Canada invites you to share your perspectives at africa.engagement.afrique@international.gc.ca.

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For questions or to exercise your rights, send an email to dcp@international.gc.ca.

Canada's Africa Strategy

Recognizing that Africa is of growing economic, security, and geopolitical importance, Global Affairs Canada (GAC) launched Canada’s Africa Strategy: A Partnership for Shared Prosperity and Security in 2025. The Strategy establishes a framework to strengthen Canada’s engagement with Africa. It aims to foster greater economic cooperation, strengthen peace and security partnerships, enhance people-to-people ties, and pursue international assistance investments that support mutually beneficial economic development.

Canada’s key engagement and priorities on the continent are:

Enhancing economic cooperation and trade development
Strengthening partnerships
Providing international development assistance towards poverty eradication
Promoting peace, security, democracy and human rights

Enhancing economic cooperation and trade development

The central objective of Canada’s economic cooperation with Africa is to contribute to shared prosperity for all parties. This includes helping the Canadian private sector and its African partners identify mutually beneficial commercial opportunities. Canada places particular emphasis on critical minerals, infrastructure, agri-food, aerospace and digital industries. Canada also aims to enter unexplored markets, secure projects and develop project pipelines.

The Africa Trade Hub is a unique body within GAC that helps Canadian companies pursue avenues for cooperation in Africa. It works in collaboration with the Trade Commissioner Service (TCS) and its network on the African continent. Canadian companies have access to a network of trade commissioners who work with them to identify and pursue international new markets and partnerships. As of 2025, the TCS has 66 Canadian and locally engaged trade commissioners serving 50 markets in Africa.

Forty African countries benefit from duty-free access to the Canadian market on almost all goods through the Least Developed Country Tariff.

Canada provides technical assistance and capacity-building support to African countries to help them implement the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA). It is a flagship project of the African Union’s Agenda 2063 that aims to accelerate intra-African trade, and boost Africa’s global trading position. This initiative offers significant economic opportunities for Canadian businesses.

Canada has Foreign Investment Promotion and Protection Agreements (FIPAs) with Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Egypt, Guinea, Mali, and Senegal, is negotiating FIPAs with Tanzania and Zambia, and exploring potential opportunities with other partners. These agreements contribute to a more predictable investment climate for Canadian private sector, encouraging Canadian investment in Africa. Information on individual FIPAs are available on Canada’s international trade and investment agreements.

In 2025, two-way merchandise trade between Canada and Africa reached a record $18.8 billion. Canadian merchandise exports to Africa totalled $6.9 billion, up 18.1 per cent from the previous year, while imports from Africa reached $11.9 billion, an increase of 25.2 per cent.

Strengthening partnerships

Canada's presence in Africa serves all 54 countries on the continent with 24 diplomatic missions. Canada also operates 21 bilateral development programs in Africa, a pan-African regional development program, and a sub-regional program covering the Sahel region.

Canada also works with Africa through multilateral organizations such as the African Union (AU), the African Development Bank, La Francophonie, and the Commonwealth. Robust strategic engagement with African partners aims to increase and diversify trade, investment and innovation opportunities to benefit African and Canadians alike.

Canada has hosted two Canada - African Union Commission High-Level Dialogues in 2022 and 2024 to advance this work. In 2023, Canada created a permanent observer mission to the African Union. In March 2025, Canada also created two positions with a Special Envoy for Africa focussing on integrated approaches to trade diversification and a Special Envoy for the Sahel supporting Canadian regional approaches to the multi-faceted crisis in the Central Sahel region.

At the global level, Canada collaborates with African countries and institutions within multilateral forums such as the G7, the G20, the United Nations, and the World Trade Organization. Canada welcomed the inclusion of the AU as a new member of the G20 in 2023.

Providing international development assistance towards poverty eradication

From 2020-21 to 2024-25, Canada provided $17.7 billion in international assistance to Africa. Canada’s assistance to Africa focused on economic growth, gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls, health and reproductive rights, education, food security, climate action, and humanitarian aid to populations affected by conflict and crises. Since 2025, these efforts have continued alongside economic development, youth employment, trade, private-capital mobilization, regional integration and mutually beneficial Canada-Africa partnerships.

Promoting peace, security, democracy and human rights

Through bilateral, regional and multilateral partnerships, Canada contributes to collective efforts that support stability, inclusive governance and resilience across the continent.

Canada is advancing partnerships in peace, security, democracy and human rights by:

supporting African-led conflict prevention, mediation, stabilization and peacebuilding initiatives;
strengthening cooperation to prevent and counter terrorism, violent extremism and transnational crime;
promoting the participation and leadership of women and youth in peace and security efforts;
supporting democratic institutions, human rights, accountability and inclusive governance;
strengthening regional capacities to address security challenges including terrorist financing, border security, terrorist use of improvised explosive devices, radicalization to violence, and drug trafficking; and
supporting efforts to prevent, detect and respond to chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear threats, including through the G7 Global Partnership collaboration with African partners on the Signature Initiative to Mitigate Biological Threats in Africa.

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