According to a UAE official who spoke to the Financial Times, the country has invested $110 billion in Africa. Regarding the country's presence in Africa, an associate professor at Georgetown University in the US claims that the UAE is now "going toe to toe with Beijing." The Emirates has continuously ranked among the top four investors on the continent over the last ten years, he says, even though many of these investments will never come to fruition. More risk-averse investors have shunned African projects, but UAE companies have embraced them. Despite "challenges when it comes to policies and politics," Hamad Buamim, chair of the Dubai Multi Commodities Centre, the primary trading hub in Dubai, asserts that Africa has a lot "to offer in terms of commodities and minerals."

Because of this financial wall, the UAE is able to influence not only the economic future of their nations but also, in certain situations, the political outcomes of certain African leaders. According to Tigrayan leaders and a senior US official, the UAE supplied military drones to the government in 2021 when Tigray People's Liberation Front fighters threatened Addis Ababa during Ethiopia's civil war.

"It supports Ethiopian institutions and people rather than any particular parties or individuals," the UAE official claims. According to a United Nations panel of experts, the UAE intervened to support the new government after Omar al-Bashir was overthrown by Sudan's generals in 2019 and then assisted the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces in the civil war that broke out the previous year. As a public supporter of peace, the UAE vehemently denies supporting either side in the conflict. According to the Director of the Africa Program at the non-profit Crisis Group, the UAE's involvement in countries such as Sudan stems in part from its aim to combat Islamist extremism. However, by investing in vital minerals, renewable energy, and food security, it has also taken advantage of the opportunity to diversify its economy, he claims. According to Mutiga, all of that results in its ambivalent impact. According to Western officials, a new level of complexity is introduced by the UAE's and other Gulf nations' expanding influence in Africa. According to an unnamed former Biden administration official, "this is the new world we're in, where you have middle powers and global powers operating on the continent."

This year, the listed conglomerate Dubai Investments, whose largest shareholder is the sovereign wealth fund of Dubai, announced that it would begin construction on a 2,000-hectare real estate project in Angola. Once known as Etisalat, the telecom company based in Abu Dhabi now operates in 12 African countries under the name e&. Companies in the UAE have started to gain traction in the mining industry. Last year, International Resources Holding, a division of International Holding Company, a $240 billion Abu Dhabi conglomerate led by Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed al-Nahyan, the national security adviser for the United Arab Emirates, paid $1.1 billion for the majority of the Mopani copper mine in Zambia, which was previously owned by Glencore. Additionally, IHR has shown interest in making investments in mines in Tanzania, Kenya, and Angola.