“If Africa cannot build the technology, then perhaps we should steal it, like China did!”
The words took us all by surprise. They came during a breakout session at the recent African trade union convening in Nairobi, where the conversation had turned to one of the oldest problems in Africa’s development story. The continent has the resources, but we continue to send them elsewhere for processing and then buy back the finished products at a much higher price.
The speaker was making a deliberately provocative point. Africa needs the technology to process its own minerals, build industries around its resources and capture more of the value created from them.
“Like China did!” There was laughter around our group table, and it drew the attention of the other group tables discussing other related issues. But the argument underneath it was serious. Africa has spent decades exporting what it has and importing what it needs. We dig the minerals, ship them elsewhere and later buy products made from those same resources at a much higher price. We have watched this happen with oil, cocoa, coffee, timber and a long list of other commodities.
Now the world has come knocking again. This time it wants our cobalt, lithium, copper, graphite and other critical minerals needed for batteries, electric vehicles, renewable energy technologies and the wider transition away from fossil fuels.
Africa also has sunshine, wind, land and a young population. We have much of what the emerging green economy requires.
So here we are again, sitting on resources that are becoming indispensable to the next industrial revolution. The danger is that we could repeat the old story with a new vocabulary.
The minerals will leave Africa. The processing will happen somewhere else. The technology will be developed somewhere else. The batteries and other finished products will come back to African markets. In short, we will provide the raw materials and buy the finished goods.
The only thing that may have changed is that this time the extraction comes wrapped in the language of ‘climate action’ and ‘green transition’. That is why the remark about stealing technology seem to stay with me.
Undoubtedly, China is now a global technological and manufacturing power. Its experience is frequently cited in discussions about how countries can move from being exporters of raw materials to becoming producers of finished goods and technology.
Africa’s circumstances are different, of course. But the lesson from that Nairobi discussion was difficult to miss: technology cannot remain somebody else’s property while Africa supplies the resources that make the next industrial revolution possible.
We need the capacity to acquire technology, adapt it to our circumstances, develop our own skills and eventually create technologies of our own.
Take cobalt, for example. The Democratic Republic of Congo supplies a very large share of the world’s cobalt. The mineral is vital to industries linked to batteries and the energy transition. But extracting cobalt from the ground is one part of the story. The bigger economic opportunity lies further along the chain: processing, refining, manufacturing, technology, skills and jobs.
The same conversation applies to lithium, copper, graphite and other minerals that are becoming increasingly important to the global energy transition.
This is where the climate conversation meets the old African development questions. Who owns the resources? Questions anout processes, technology, financing the industries, the.jobs all come into play. Ultimately, who captures the greater share of the value?
These are development questions we should confront with intent and purpose. They should be at the centre of Africa’s climate conversation because the green transition is also becoming an industrial transition.
There is another piece of the puzzle that cannot be ignored; it’s energy. Africa cannot industrialise on unreliable and unaffordable electricity. A country cannot seriously expect to attract mineral processing and manufacturing industries while governments and businesses are spending fortunes trying to keep the lights on.
We have reached the strange position where Africa possesses minerals needed to power the world’s future while many African countries struggle to generate enough reliable electricity to power their own economies.
There is something seriously wrong with that picture. A green transition that creates new industries will require huge investments in energy infrastructure. It will require workers with new skills, technical education, research, manufacturing capacity and access to finance.
This is where the labour movement has an important voice. The transition is often discussed in terms of emissions, technologies, investments and climate targets. However, the workers see another side of it. They see the factory that may close; the mine that may change; the contractor whose job may disappear. They see the entire community whose economy depends on an industry that somebody has decided must eventually change.
For such workers, the transition is not something happening in 2035 or 2050. It is happening in their lives. The worker who loses his/her job cannot pay school fees with a climate communiqué. Likewise, the contractor whose contract disappears cannot feed his family with promises about the green economy. Equally, the mining community whose land and livelihoods are disrupted needs something tangible in return.
That is why ‘just transition’ has to mean something in the lives of ordinary people. It must involve skills, decent work, social protection, new economic opportunities and a voice for workers and communities in decisions that affect their future.
The word “just” cannot be decorative. It has to describe what the worker and the whole community experience when an old industry declines and a new one emerges.
This also changes the way, as media and journalists, we should be reporting climate change. We have become accustomed to covering climate change through events such as floods, droughts, rising temperatures and international conferences where leaders make declarations. Those stories remain important, but the climate story has moved right into the heart of the economy.
It is now a story about mining, electricity, jobs, taxation, trade, debt, and industrialisation. It is also about who controls the resources, and the technology.
That is why African media and journalists must follow the story beyond the announcement of a new climate investment. We need to follow the money, the resources, the jobs and the value chain.
When a new critical-minerals project is announced, the story should not end with the amount of investment coming into the country. We should be asking where is the mineral processed? Where is the value added? How many African workers are employed? What skills are transferred? What industries are created around it? What remains in the community after the investor has recovered the investment? Ultimately, what does the African state actually gain?
Those are the questions that will tell us whether the green economy becomes a new opportunity for African industrialisation or another chapter in the continent’s long history of exporting raw materials.
Going forward, African governments will have to negotiate differently. They will need to think beyond royalties and export earnings and look at industrial policy, technology transfer, local processing and skills development.
The private sector will have to invest in productive capacity. Workers and communities will need a seat at the table. And the media will have to follow the story beyond the speeches.
There is a temptation to assume that anything carrying the label ‘green’ must automatically be good for Africa. It isn’t.
A green economy can reproduce an old economic relationship in which Africa supplies the raw materials while others control the technology, capital, processing and markets. That would be a green economy. It would not necessarily be the transformation Africa needs.
The challenge before us is therefore bigger, bigger than changing the source of energy. Africa has to change its position in the global value chain. We have to move from digging and exporting to processing and manufacturing. From importing technology to developing and adapting technology. From supplying labour and raw materials to creating industries. From being a market for other people’s products to becoming a producer ourselves.
That is the real promise of the green revolution. Maybe, that is what the colleague in Nairobi was really saying when he told Africa to “steal the technology, like China did.”
That was a provocative contribution. It was humorous. But the message was hard to miss. Africa cannot afford to enter the next industrial revolution as a spectator. We have the minerals. We have the energy potential. We have the people. Now we need the technology, the skills, the industries and the political courage to build with what we have.
Otherwise, we will once again find ourselves standing beside a ship loaded with Africa’s resources, waving goodbye, and waiting for the finished product to come back.
Therefore, Africa’s green revolution must change what we are able to build, not only what we are able to extract. This may help us own at least part of the switch.
NOTE: The author is the Chairman for the Federation of African Journalists (FAJ) Working Group on Climate Change.
