The choice of US President Donald Trump’s administration to droop international support and shut down the USAID company has despatched shockwaves throughout the event trade. In 2024, almost a 3rd of the $41bn in US international support went to Africa, serving to help varied sectors from healthcare to schooling and sanitation.
However as support organisations sound alarm bells and authorities officers wring their palms over suspended programmes, we’re lacking the larger image: Africa’s continued dependence on international support is a alternative, not a necessity. Our continent sits atop among the world’s largest reserves of the very minerals that may energy the longer term, but we stay trapped in cycles of support dependency. It’s time to change that.
Allow us to be clear about what’s at stake. The Democratic Republic of the Congo provides 70 % of the world’s cobalt – the important ingredient in electrical car batteries. South Africa produces 75 % of the world’s platinum and 50 % of palladium. Mozambique and Madagascar possess among the largest graphite deposits globally. Zimbabwe has the most important deposits of caesium, a essential steel utilized in GPS and 5G methods.
Extra than simply rocks and metals, these are the keys to the worldwide clear vitality transition. Each electrical car, photo voltaic panel, and wind turbine is determined by minerals that Africa has in abundance.
But right here we’re, nonetheless exporting uncooked supplies like colonial-era vassals whereas begging for support from the identical nations that revenue from our sources. The maths is infuriating: We promote uncooked cobalt for $26-30 per kg (2.2lb), whereas battery-grade processed supplies fetch $150-200. We’re giving freely greater than 80 % of the worth chain to international processors and producers. This isn’t simply unhealthy enterprise – it’s financial malpractice.
The worldwide battery market alone will attain $250bn by 2030. The renewable vitality sector is rising at breakneck velocity, with photo voltaic installations growing 26 % yearly.
Clearly, Africa’s mineral riches symbolize the best financial alternative of our technology. However as a substitute of positioning ourselves to seize this worth, we’re debating how one can patch the holes left by suspended support programmes.
Critics will say we lack the infrastructure, experience, and capital to course of these minerals ourselves. They’re proper – for now. However that is exactly the place we needs to be investing our sources and focusing our political will. The Chinese language understood this many years in the past, which is why they’ve poured almost $58bn into securing management of essential mineral provide chains throughout Africa. They noticed the longer term whereas we had been busy filling out support utility varieties.
The answer is just not difficult, although it’s difficult. We have to construct processing services, not simply extraction websites. We have to set up particular financial zones targeted on mineral beneficiation, not merely export terminals. We have to put money into analysis and improvement services that may adapt and enhance processing applied sciences. Most significantly, we have to suppose and act regionally.
Think about a Southern African Growth Group Battery Supplies Initiative, the place nations pool sources and experience to construct built-in worth chains. Image an East African Uncommon Earth Components Cooperation Framework that turns our mineral wealth into high-tech manufacturing capabilities. These are usually not pipe desires – they’re missed alternatives each day we proceed enterprise as standard.
The environmental critics will say mining is soiled and harmful. They’re not mistaken in regards to the dangers, however they’re mistaken in regards to the resolution. The reply isn’t to depart our minerals within the floor; it’s to set our personal excessive requirements for sustainable extraction and processing. We are able to construct a mining and processing trade that protects our surroundings and advantages our communities. We should, as a result of the choice is watching international firms do it their method whereas we cope with the results.
The help suspension has created human struggling that can’t be ignored. HIV remedy programmes, academic initiatives, and meals safety tasks are all in danger. But when these programmes are important – and lots of of them are – why ought to we rely on the political whims of international governments to fund them? Our minerals would pay for these programmes many instances over as soon as we seize their full worth.
What we’d like now’s political braveness and unity of objective. We want leaders who can look past the following election cycle and envision an Africa that funds its personal improvement. We want enterprise leaders who can construct processing services as a substitute of export terminals. We want academic establishments that prepare chemical engineers and metallurgists as a substitute of support programme directors.
The present disaster should function our catalyst for transformation. Each suspended support greenback ought to drive us to seize tenfold worth from our minerals, and each diplomatic slight ought to strengthen our resolve to construct African options. The selection is evident: We are able to spend the approaching many years haggling over support budgets, or we are able to lastly take management of our future by way of the strategic improvement of our mineral wealth.
It’s time for Africa to rework from the world’s uncooked supplies retailer into its manufacturing powerhouse. By turning our mineral wealth into lasting prosperity, we are able to make international support what it ought to have been all alongside: pointless.
The views expressed on this article are the writer’s personal and don’t essentially replicate Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
