A brand new scramble for Africa is underway. It’s not marked by warships or colonial flags, however by battery provide chains, inexperienced transition targets, and high-level commerce delegations. The race is for lithium, cobalt, graphite, manganese, platinum group metals and uncommon earth components — the minerals powering electrical autos, renewable power methods and digital infrastructure.
This scramble is quieter than the Nineteenth-century model. However its implications may very well be simply as profound.
The distinction at present is that Africa will not be politically fragmented in the identical approach. The continent possesses regional financial blocs with the institutional capability to form outcomes — in the event that they select to behave strategically moderately than competitively.
The Southern African Growth Group (SADC) sits on the epicentre of the worldwide power transition mineral map. The Democratic Republic of Congo dominates cobalt. Zimbabwe holds vital lithium deposits. South Africa controls huge platinum and manganese reserves. Zambia stays central to copper provide. But regardless of this focus of strategic assets, worth addition stays restricted. Uncooked exports proceed to dominate.
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If SADC acts collectively, it might coordinate beneficiation insurance policies, harmonise royalty regimes, and develop cross-border battery precursor industries. If it doesn’t, member states will undercut each other in a race to draw international capital — weakening Africa’s negotiating energy.
In West Africa, the Financial Group of West African States (ECOWAS) faces a special however equally important check. Guinea’s bauxite, Ghana’s lithium prospects, and widespread gold reserves place the area as a mineral heavyweight. But governance instability and political fragmentation threat turning alternative into vulnerability. With out regulatory harmonisation, multinational companies will have interaction states individually, exploiting coverage gaps and asymmetries.
In the meantime, the East African Group (EAC) holds rising strategic minerals resembling graphite and uncommon earth components. The EAC’s relative progress in customs integration and customary market protocols offers a basis for coordinated industrial coverage. The query is whether or not that framework will prolong past commerce facilitation into strategic mineral processing and regional manufacturing.
Above all of them, the African Union has lengthy articulated the African Mining Imaginative and prescient — a blueprint for resource-based industrialisation. However visions require enforcement. The African Continental Free Commerce Space (AfCFTA) presents a platform to remodel mineral extraction into continental worth chains. With out alignment between regional blocs and continental technique, nevertheless, AfCFTA dangers turning into a commerce hall for uncooked exports moderately than a catalyst for industrialisation.
The brand new scramble will not be violent. It’s contractual. It unfolds by means of memoranda of understanding, infrastructure financing agreements and strategic partnership summits. Europe seeks provide chain safety. China secures long-term offtake agreements. The USA and Gulf states are rising engagement. None of that is inherently exploitative. However absent coordination, Africa might once more provide the uncooked supplies whereas importing the completed merchandise.
Regional blocs should subsequently transfer past declarations. They need to set up frequent mineral pricing rules, necessary regional beneficiation targets, clear contract registries, and sovereign mineral funds to seize intergenerational worth. Infrastructure corridors have to be designed to serve industrialisation — not merely extraction.
The stakes are clear. Vital minerals might anchor Africa’s structural transformation. Or they may entrench dependency underneath a greener banner.
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This time, Africa will not be with out establishments. The query is whether or not its regional blocs will act as passive gateways for extraction — or as strategic architects of a brand new industrial period.
Historical past is watching.
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Daniel Makokera is a renowed media persona who has labored as journalist, tv anchor, producer and convention presenter for over 20 years. All through his profession as presenter and anchor, he has travelled broadly throughout the continent and held unique interviews with a few of Africa’s most illustrious leaders. These embody former UN Secretary Normal Kofi Annan, former South African presidents Nelson Mandela and Thabo Mbeki, former Libyan chief Muammar Gaddafi, Zimbabwean Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and presidents Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe and Joseph Kabila of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. He presently is the CEO of Pamuzinda Productions based mostly in South Africa.
