With its Yemen venture faltering under Saudi pressure and local resistance, Abu Dhabi is racing to rebrand its influence through checkbook diplomacy across Africa
The Cradle
The Southern Transitional Council (STC), once the UAE's most reliable lever in Yemen, had buckled under tribal rivalries and Saudi encroachment in the Hadhramaut and Al-Mahra governorates. As Riyadh reasserted its security dominance over key strategic territories, Emirati proxies were squeezed out, often without a fight. Even the STC’s dramatic declaration of a “state of the south” backfired, inviting more Saudi pushback and complicating any illusion of stable Emirati-backed autonomy.
This deterioration coincided with growing international scrutiny over Red Sea security, particularly in Bab al-Mandab – a chokepoint now enmeshed in wider confrontations involving global powers. The costs of indirect involvement rose dramatically as the UAE’s actions in Yemen were increasingly linked to broader naval and security equations. With diminishing influence and rising liabilities, Abu Dhabi pulled back, signaling not a tactical recalibration but a full strategic departure.
The final straw may have come with the Saudis regaining key positions in Mukalla and other parts of Hadhramaut previously held by UAE-aligned forces. This shift from subtle rivalry to direct displacement highlighted just how untenable Abu Dhabi's position had become. Signs of a full Emirati exit began to emerge in official circles – not merely to avoid diplomatic embarrassment, but as part of a broader effort to reallocate influence toward more manageable arenas.
Abu Dhabi's Africa turn
As pressure mounted in Yemen, Abu Dhabi wasted no time in redirecting its influence playbook toward the African continent. This redirection did not begin with humanitarian gestures alone. It involved a full-scale investment strategy, aimed at repositioning the UAE as a leading development partner on a continent hungry for infrastructure, technology, and capital.
In January 2026, the UAE International Aid Agency (UAEA) signed an agreement with UNHCR to provide a $15-million grant supporting Sudan’s humanitarian response, including protection services and essential aid, a gesture that drew scrutiny given Abu Dhabi's complicity in fueling the very conflict it now claims to mitigate.
Earlier in 2025, in response to Botswana’s declaration of a national health emergency, the UAE had dispatched urgent medical supplies. But the financial architecture went deeper.
In November 2025, during the G20 summit in Johannesburg, Abu Dhabi announced a $1-billion “AI for Development” initiative aimed at improving digital infrastructure, healthcare, education, and agricultural innovation across Africa. Last month, a separate four-year, $40-million partnership with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation focused on deploying artificial intelligence (AI) in sub-Saharan educational systems.
Meanwhile, Abu Dhabi committed nearly $500 million through a coalition of philanthropic entities, including the Mohammed bin Zayed Philanthropies, to improve maternal and neonatal health across the continent.
These are only the headline figures. Abu Dhabi has also pledged hundreds of millions more through ADQ, Khalifa Fund, and other vehicles targeting agriculture, logistics, and green energy in East and West Africa.
Together, these ventures mark a methodical shift away from militarized proxy strategies toward a model where aid, investment, and infrastructure drive influence. This is a doctrine that uses development finance as both soft power and a geopolitical entry point. Much like China’s, Emirati aid is now structured to secure long-term partnerships with African governments, institutions, and multilateral agencies, building political capital without boots on the ground.
Ports of power: Securing sea lanes without soldiers
Parallel to its development push, the UAE has embedded itself across Africa’s maritime corridors through long-term port concessions and logistics deals that effectively function as geopolitical anchors.
In Angola, AD Ports Group began operations in early 2025 under a 20-year concession valued at $250 million, expected to rise to $380 million. This port links Zambia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to broader maritime networks. In Congo-Brazzaville, the Pointe-Noire port is being developed under a 30-year contract expected to handle 400,000 containers annually by 2027.
Tanzania’s Dar es Salaam port is being upgraded through a DP World concession signed in 2023, with projected Emirati investments of $1 billion over a decade.
In the Horn of Africa, Abu Dhabi has expanded its footprint in Berbera (Somaliland) through a 2016 agreement now extended to include land links to Ethiopia. Djibouti and Eritrea also feature in this network, not necessarily through formal ownership, but via logistical partnerships that allow Abu Dhabi to influence Red Sea access routes.
In West Africa, the picture is no different. Since 2020, DP World has led the $1.1-billion Ndiayan deep-sea port in Senegal, poised to become a major export hub for Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger. In Guinea, the UAE has consolidated control over Conakry’s port, critical to bauxite and gold exports. Mauritania has emerged as a new node of Emirati interest, as Nouakchott’s port infrastructure becomes an alternative route for Sahel trade amid waning French influence.
Ports have become a central plank in Abu Dhabi’s foreign policy. Long-term concessions, infrastructure investments, and logistical integration allow the UAE to exert soft military presence without direct deployments – securing trade chokepoints and maritime arteries that double as leverage over regional states.
Yet this port-driven strategy has not gone uncontested, with Somalia emerging as a sharp stress test for the political limits of Emirati influence in the Horn of Africa. On 12 January 2026, in an unprecedented escalation, Somalia’s federal government announced the annulment of all agreements signed with the UAE, including port concessions and defence and security cooperation deals, accusing Abu Dhabi of undermining national sovereignty. The move, however, immediately exposed deep internal fractures and the fragility of central authority: Puntland authorities declared the cancellation null and void within their territory, reaffirming the continuation of their security and development partnership with the UAE – most notably the Bosaso port development project operated by DP World; Jubaland criticized the decision in light of its previously close ties with Abu Dhabi; while Somaliland outright rejected what it described as “daydreaming in Mogadishu,” renewing its confidence in the UAE as a reliable partner and signalling its readiness to stand by it. Together, these responses underscore the depth of Somalia’s internal divisions over Emirati influence and highlight the formidable challenge facing the federal government in asserting sovereignty across the entire country.
Yemen vs Africa: Two models of influence
Yemen demonstrated the fragility of using armed proxies as tools of foreign policy. The STC’s implosion under tribal and Saudi pressure, and the eventual Emirati retreat, underscored the volatility of military alliances in contested zones. The occupation state’s continued aggression and Saudi Arabia’s own recalibration toward Sanaa’s government further exposed the limitations of proxy warfare.
In Africa, the UAE is deploying capital instead of soldiers. Through sovereign funds like ADQ and state-backed entities like DP World, it is weaving a web of financial dependency that binds governments through trade, infrastructure, and social investment. This model is scalable, less controversial, and more palatable to western allies seeking “stability” narratives.
While Yemen entailed direct support to armed factions and covert operations, Africa offers open contracts, intergovernmental frameworks, and visibility through global summits. Instead of security dilemmas, the Emirati presence is framed as developmental. Instead of friction with Saudi Arabia, the UAE is quietly carving out a sphere of influence that bypasses Gulf rivalries altogether.
The two models are not merely tactical contrasts. They reflect a philosophical turn in Emirati statecraft – from coercion to consensus-building through money, infrastructure, and technological outreach.
A dual message to the world
Abu Dhabi’s expansion into Africa carries both regional and global significance.
Regionally, it sends a message to Riyadh: the Emirates no longer needs the Yemeni quagmire to project power. The UAE’s retreat from the Yemen theater also clears space for Saudi Arabia to reassert itself – perhaps even helping Riyadh consolidate a new understanding with the Ansarallah-led government in Sanaa. The UAE, meanwhile, has no appetite to underwrite a conflict that generates diminishing returns.
Globally, it tells Washington and Brussels that Abu Dhabi is now a partner in “development,” not destabilization. The optics of investing in African maternal health, AI infrastructure, and education provide cover for the UAE to maintain leverage without attracting the controversies that plagued its interventions in Yemen and Libya.
Yet, this shift is not purely reactive. It builds on years of Emirati expansion into African logistics, finance, and agriculture. The events of late 2025 simply accelerated what was already underway. The war in Yemen exposed the ceiling of proxy-led influence. Africa, by contrast, offers a fertile arena for sustained and relatively uncontested engagement.
But this terrain is also competitive. China, Turkiye, Russia, India, and Israel are all pursuing overlapping strategies on the continent. The UAE’s comparative advantage lies in its ability to move quickly, combine state and private capital, and exploit its neutral branding. Whether this will suffice in the long term remains to be seen.
What is clear is that Emirati military and political roles in conflict theaters like Yemen are likely to diminish in favor of financial instruments and development strategies elsewhere. Africa no longer serves as a peripheral arena for the UAE. It has become a central pillar of Abu Dhabi’s global posture.
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