Devastating conflict rages over Mideast.
Rightly, it consumes our attention.
But on the African continent, conflicts are usually ignored, whether in the Great Lakes region, the Sahel, or the Horn of Africa.
Only last week the International Organisation of Migration announced that seven million people had been displaced by conflict in the Congo.
Long-term economic development is a powerful tool for ending conflict.
African economies suffered from the disruptions of COVID-19 and from the inflationary effects of the war on Ukraine.
One year ago, I was in Ghana, meeting rice farmers, who were unable to afford fertilizer, thanks to the supply-chain crisis resulting from the Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
Fields that would normally be green with rice plants lay on the ground - with an unhealthy yellow color.
With Gross Dmoestic Product (GDP) per capita in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) roughly six times below the global average, these economic shocks can be the difference between families being able to educate or even feed their children.
But the economic trajectory for Africa could be bright.
It has a critical role to play in global supply chains.
The disruptions from Ukraine have driven a need to diversify energy sources, which is good news for Africa.
Natural gas projects from Mozambique to Senegal are being greenlighted, with the continent’s gas production expected to double over the next 10 years.
It’s not surprising that many of the world’s fastest-growing economies in 2024 are projected to be in Africa, according to the IMF, including countries such as Côte d’Ivoire, Senegal and Tanzania.
But post-hydrocarbon world is also promising.
Africa has huge quantities of the strategic minerals needed for the energy transition. It is also, in some cases, able to be a direct exporter of clean energy.
In Morocco, a wind and solar installation proposed by Xlinks would supply as much as 8% of Britain’s electricity in the 2030s via undersea cables.
With its abundance of sunshine, Africa is also well-placed to become a major supplier of green hydrogen, one of the fuels of the future.
There is also potential to increase the continent’s industrial and agricultural productivity. Food is a priority: 65% of the world’s unused agricultural land is on the African continent, which also has the world’s fastest population growth.
Moving from import dependence to a global food exporter could transform Africa’s economic prospects.
Global supply chains are necessarily part of an interconnected economy. But African countries increasingly look to diversify economic dependence away from the Global North to a more balanced set of trade partners.
The African Development Bank (ADB), a major multilateral finance institution based in Abidjan, invests to reduce poverty through projects that improve infrastructure, increase agricultural productivity and drive industrial development.
This week the ADB is holding the African Investment Forum in Marrakesh on the subject of unlocking Africa’s potential to grow its role in global supply chains.
An important element this is the growth of south-south co-operation.
The ADB has drawn in partners from across the Global South, including Brazil and the GCC. Another axis of co-operation is with the Caribbean: the Marrakesh meeting will be attended by Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley.
There are obvious historic injustices that unite these regions: notably the legacies of colonialism and the Middle Passage, when Europeans enslaved African peoples to labor in Caribbean plantations.
These legacies have a long tail: to this day, African and Caribbean countries tend to export raw materials to the Global North rather than collaborating to increase their share of the value chain.
According to the International Trade Centre currently the Caribbean and Africa only ship 1% of their exports to each other (largely chemicals and minerals).
But there is great potential to change this dynamic.
Prime Minister Mottley and ADB President Akinwumi Adesina have spoken of the importance of engaging Africa’s global diaspora, including those in the Caribbean, in growing Africa’s economy.
Caribbean countries have become investors across the African continent.
For example, Republic Bank, one of the largest financial institutions in the Caribbean, is a growing presence in Ghana. And investment is flowing in the other direction: last year, Afreximbank, an institution that focuses on trade finance, opened an office in Barbados.
It is now working with the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) to establish a Caribbean export finance agency. An increase in Caribbean-African trade could unlock billions of dollars of benefits, according to a 2022 report.
Morocco, by hosting the Africa Investment Forum, in spite of its recent earthquake, is also playing a key convening role building Africa’s economic resilience, including strengthening transatlantic links to the Caribbean.
With conflicts afflicting parts of both the Arab world and Africa, steady, population-centered economic growth will always be the greatest defense against instability and violence.
Arthur Snell is a former diplomat, British author, and political commentator. He was the UK's high commissioner to Trinidad and Tobago from 2011 to 2014.
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