Scholarship Funding in Africa: A Regional Evidence Review

This working paper brings together publicly available evidence on scholarship funding systems, educational finance, research infrastructure, and applicant barriers across low-income and lower-middle-income African countries. Drawing on multilateral organisations, government agencies, peer-reviewed literature, and official institutional sources published mainly between 2022 and mid-2026, the review explores how domestic education financing, reliance on international scholarships, research capacity, digital access, conflict, and policy design influence access to funded higher education. The evidence highlights five recurring barriers for applicants within the regional scholarship ecosystem: financial documentation requirements, digital exclusion during online applications, costs associated with language and standardised test preparation, restrictive eligibility criteria, and loss of documents due to conflict. The review also compares domestic funding mechanisms, education financing patterns, research investment, gender disparities, rural-urban inequalities, and Anglophone-Francophone educational systems. Instead of evaluating individual scholarship programmes, this paper offers a regional evidence synthesis designed to support researchers, policymakers, higher education professionals, scholarship practitioners, and prospective applicants. It contributes to the Global Scholarship Funding Evidence Series by presenting a structured overview of the scholarship funding landscape across Africa, while also pinpointing evidence gaps that require future research.