This paper investigates the role of technology adoption and quality of institutions on the export performance of African countries. Data on 49 African countries for the period 1995–2019 is used while the two-step system generalized method of moment estimation technique is employed for analyses. The results reveal that, in both the short run and long run, technology adoption and quality of institutions are crucial in driving export performance in Africa. More importantly, our results clearly show that, in both periods, quality of institutions serve as important channel through which technology adoption has its largest positive impact on export performance in Africa. Based on these outcomes, policies designed to improve the technology adoption and quality of institutions would be beneficial to the performance of exports in African countries.