africaAPI

Platform

Rate Limits

Safe client behavior for Africa API, including retries, batching, and caching guidance.

Current Behavior

As of March 2026, Africa API does not publish formal per-key quota headers. You should still build for backoff, batching, and caching.

  1. Set explicit request timeouts.
  2. Retry only transient failures (429, 5xx).
  3. Batch related observations into one /v1/data call instead of many single-resource requests.
  4. Cache GET /v1/countries using ETag and Cache-Control.
  5. Avoid request spikes when hydrating dashboards.

Retry Template (JavaScript)

async function requestWithBackoff(url, init, maxAttempts = 4) {
  let delayMs = 300;

  for (let attempt = 1; attempt <= maxAttempts; attempt++) {
    const response = await fetch(url, init);
    if (response.ok) return response;

    const retryable = response.status === 429 || response.status >= 500;
    if (!retryable || attempt === maxAttempts) return response;

    await new Promise((resolve) => setTimeout(resolve, delayMs + Math.random() * 200));
    delayMs *= 2;
  }
}

Query Design Tips

  • Prefer country_codes=ng,ke,za over three separate requests.
  • Prefer metric_keys=population_total,gdp_current_usd where a combined response is acceptable.
  • Use latest=true when you do not need a full time series.

Future Contract

If explicit quota headers or published plans are introduced, this page should be treated as the source of truth.

Platform

Inspect release identity, source freshness, and data quality when you need operational visibility.

Errors

HTTP status codes, validation failures, and common error shapes returned by Africa API.

On this page

Current BehaviorRecommended Client ControlsRetry Template (JavaScript)Query Design TipsFuture Contract