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 numerous sectors from healthcare to training and sanitation.
However as support organisations sound alarm bells and authorities officers wring their arms over suspended programmes, we’re lacking the larger image: Africa’s continued dependence on international support is a selection, not a necessity. Our continent sits atop a few of the world’s largest reserves of the very minerals that may energy the long run, 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 p.c of the world’s cobalt – the important ingredient in electrical automobile batteries. South Africa produces 75 p.c of the world’s platinum and 50 p.c of palladium. Mozambique and Madagascar possess a few of the largest graphite deposits globally. Zimbabwe has the biggest deposits of caesium, a important metallic utilized in GPS and 5G programs.
Extra than simply rocks and metals, these are the keys to the worldwide clear power transition. Each electrical automobile, 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 international locations that revenue from our sources. The mathematics is infuriating: We promote uncooked cobalt for $26-30 per kg (2.2lb), whereas battery-grade processed supplies fetch $150-200. We’re gifting away greater than 80 p.c of the worth chain to international processors and producers. This isn’t simply dangerous enterprise – it’s financial malpractice.
The worldwide battery market alone will attain $250bn by 2030. The renewable power sector is rising at breakneck pace, with photo voltaic installations growing 26 p.c yearly.
Clearly, Africa’s mineral riches signify the best financial alternative of our technology. However as an alternative of positioning ourselves to seize this worth, we’re debating the way to 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 must be investing our sources and focusing our political will. The Chinese language understood this a long time in the past, which is why they’ve poured almost $58bn into securing management of important mineral provide chains throughout Africa. They noticed the long run whereas we had been busy filling out support software types.
The answer shouldn’t be difficult, although it’s difficult. We have to construct processing amenities, not simply extraction websites. We have to set up particular financial zones centered on mineral beneficiation, not merely export terminals. We have to put money into analysis and improvement amenities that may adapt and enhance processing applied sciences. Most significantly, we have to assume and act regionally.
Think about a Southern African Growth Neighborhood Battery Supplies Initiative, the place international locations 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 aren’t pipe desires – they’re missed alternatives every single day we proceed enterprise as ordinary.
The environmental critics will say mining is soiled and harmful. They’re not flawed in regards to the dangers, however they’re flawed in regards to the answer. 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 will 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 corporations do it their method whereas we take care of the implications.
The help suspension has created human struggling that can not be ignored. HIV remedy programmes, academic initiatives, and meals safety initiatives are all in danger. But when these programmes are important – and plenty 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 want now’s political braveness and unity of function. 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 amenities as an alternative of export terminals. We want academic establishments that prepare chemical engineers and metallurgists as an alternative 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 obvious: We will spend the approaching a long time haggling over support budgets, or we will lastly take management of our future by way of the strategic improvement of our mineral wealth.
It’s time for Africa to remodel from the world’s uncooked supplies retailer into its manufacturing powerhouse. By turning our mineral wealth into lasting prosperity, we will make international support what it ought to have been all alongside: pointless.
The views expressed on this article are the creator’s personal and don’t essentially mirror Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
