The choice of US President Donald Trump’s administration to droop overseas assist and shut down the USAID company has despatched shockwaves throughout the event trade. In 2024, almost a 3rd of the $41bn in US overseas assist went to Africa, serving to help varied sectors from healthcare to schooling and sanitation.
However as assist organisations sound alarm bells and authorities officers wring their fingers over suspended programmes, we’re lacking the larger image: Africa’s continued dependence on overseas assist is a selection, not a necessity. Our continent sits atop a number of the world’s largest reserves of the very minerals that can energy the long run, but we stay trapped in cycles of assist 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 number of the largest graphite deposits globally. Zimbabwe has the most important deposits of caesium, a vital metallic utilized in GPS and 5G methods.
Extra than simply rocks and metals, these are the keys to the worldwide clear vitality transition. Each electrical automobile, photo voltaic panel, and wind turbine will depend on minerals that Africa has in abundance.
But right here we’re, nonetheless exporting uncooked supplies like colonial-era vassals whereas begging for assist from the identical nations that revenue from our assets. 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 making a gift of greater than 80 p.c of the worth chain to overseas 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 vitality sector is rising at breakneck pace, with photo voltaic installations rising 26 p.c yearly.
Clearly, Africa’s mineral riches characterize the best financial alternative of our era. However as a substitute of positioning ourselves to seize this worth, we’re debating patch the holes left by suspended assist 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 ought to be investing our assets 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 vital mineral provide chains throughout Africa. They noticed the long run whereas we had been busy filling out assist software kinds.
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 spend money on 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 Improvement Group Battery Supplies Initiative, the place nations pool assets 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 goals – they’re missed alternatives on daily basis we proceed enterprise as normal.
The environmental critics will say mining is soiled and damaging. They’re not improper concerning the dangers, however they’re improper concerning 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 overseas corporations do it their approach whereas we cope with the results.
The help suspension has created human struggling that can’t be ignored. HIV therapy programmes, instructional 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 overseas governments to fund them? Our minerals would pay for these programmes many occasions over as soon as we seize their full worth.
What we want now could be political braveness and unity of goal. 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 instructional establishments that practice chemical engineers and metallurgists as a substitute of assist programme directors.
The present disaster should function our catalyst for transformation. Each suspended assist 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 will spend the approaching a long time haggling over assist budgets, or we will lastly take management of our future by 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 overseas assist 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.
