Africa and the architecture of the global green transition

Africa sits at the center of the clean-energy transition as both a major source of critical minerals and one of the world’s largest under-electrified regions, making it a key arena for geopolitical and industrial competition among China, the United States, Europe, and emerging actors. At the same time, African governments and regional institutions are becoming more assertive, using mineral leverage, regulatory reforms, and continental frameworks to shape investment terms and capture greater domestic value. Recent developments — including the Democratic Republic of Congo’s (DRC) offer of state mining assets to U.S. investors and China’s 2026 China-Africa engagement initiative — highlight Africa’s growing role not just as a site of competition, but as an active shaper of it.

Africa's structural centrality

Africa’s rising global relevance is increasingly driven by the minerals underpinning the energy transition. IEA projections suggest demand for cobalt, lithium, manganese, graphite, and other battery inputs could double or triple by 2030. The continent holds around 30 percent of global critical mineral reserves, including dominant shares of cobalt, manganese, platinum group metals, and graphite. The DRC leads global cobalt production, while Zimbabwe, Namibia, Ghana, Mali, and Southern Africa are emerging lithium and manganese suppliers. South Africa provides about 40 percent of global manganese, and the DRC–Zambia Copperbelt accounts for roughly one-fifth of global copper output, reaching 4.2 million tonnes in 2025 despite seismic disruptions.

Supply-side dominance alone does not explain Africa’s role. Around 600 million people still lack access, and Sub-Saharan Africa now accounts for 85 percent of the global unconnected population, up from 50 percent in 2010. While access rose from 30 percent in 2012 to 50 percent in 2024, per capita electricity use has declined as tariffs outpaced incomes. This under-electrification is both a development challenge and a major source of future demand. Africa is therefore both a key supplier of critical minerals and an emerging energy demand center.

Regional institutions amplify this structural weight. The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) — the world’s largest free-trade zone by number of participating countries — is creating a regulatory and commercial environment that supports cross-border value chains and harmonized industrial rules. Agenda 2063 further articulates an African-led development vision centered on industrialization, infrastructure, and self-determined growth. Taken together, these frameworks begin to reconfigure bargaining power, as foreign investors increasingly navigate regional rules and domestic industrial strategies rather than relying solely on bilateral access.

The result is that Africa's policy choices are beginning to shape the global supply chain architecture. Export restrictions on unprocessed minerals, tariff incentives for local manufacturing, regional energy-pooling initiatives, and coordinated standards-setting all could influence where global manufacturing will occur — and under what terms. Despite this mineral wealth, Africa currently captures only about 10 percent of the value generated from its mineral exports, a structural gap that these frameworks are explicitly designed to address.

External powers and supply-chain competition

Africa's mineral and energy resources have drawn sustained attention from global powers, each pursuing distinct strategies to secure influence and supply-chain footholds. China has maintained a long-term, multifaceted engagement spanning over three decades, evolving from a focus on infrastructure and political ties to an emphasis on resource-backed industrialization under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

More recently, China has expanded aggressively into processing and manufacturing. Reporting by S&P Global documents rapid construction of battery-metals refineries, concentrators, and processing hubs across Southern Africa. China now controls an estimated 87 percent of global critical minerals processing and refining and produces nearly 70 percent of rare earth minerals — a dominance that extends into and structures African supply chains. By controlling extraction, refining, and manufacturing, China has built vertically integrated supply chains, shaping costs, scale, and technological standards.

China’s engagement is reinforced by sustained diplomacy and institutional continuity. Long-serving envoys, frequent high-level visits, and coordinated messaging frame Beijing as a reliable development partner rooted in South–South solidarity. The 2024 FOCAC Joint Summit Joint Declaration and Beijing Action Plan (2025–2027) Declaration and Beijing Action Plan (2025–2027) formalized an “all-weather China-Africa community with a shared future,” prioritizing renewable energy, industrial parks, and greater African agenda-setting. The January 2026 launch of the China-Africa Year of People-to-People Exchanges in Addis Ababa — alongside Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s 63rd visit since 2013 — underscored this continuity.

China has refined its financing model. Early BRI projects were often overbuilt or financially unsustainable; today, state banks and SOEs are more selective amid slower growth, while private firms and joint ventures account for a growing share of investment in manufacturing, consumer goods, and services. RMB-denominated lending and trade settlement reduce currency risk and advance de-dollarization. The 2024–2027 FOCAC Beijing Action Plan pledges $50 billion to “small yet beautiful” projects, shifting away from large, debt-heavy infrastructure toward more targeted investment. Visible project delivery and sustained diplomacy continue to underpin China’s credibility in African capitals.

African countries continue to run large trade deficits, exporting commodities to China while importing manufactured goods. As Beijing reins in risk and blends concessional with commercial lending, new financing has slowed, leaving China collecting more in debt service than it extends in fresh loans. A coalition of Congolese civil society groups has called for a fresh review of the country's mining agreements with Chinese companies, arguing the existing deal cost the DRC $132 million in 2024 through tax exemptions granted to Chinese firms. These dynamics limit flexibility but open space for alternative models of engagement, setting the stage for the contrasting approach pursued by the United States.

U.S. engagement in Africa’s critical minerals sector has expanded quickly, with the DFC saying Africa is its largest regional portfolio at more than $13 billion in cumulative investments. Publicly documented DFC-linked deals include $50 million for South Africa’s Phalaborwa rare earths project and support for Angola’s Longonjo rare earths project, while the Lobito Corridor received a $553 million financing package. The $1.8 billion Orion Critical Mineral Consortium was launched in 2025 with Orion and ADQ and was described as having a path to scale to $5 billion.

Yet U.S. influence is constrained by an incoherent strategy. Uncertainty around AGOA — expired since September 2025 — alongside cuts to programs like PEPFAR, a reduced diplomatic presence, and visa restrictions, reinforces perceptions of episodic, transactional engagement. By contrast, China’s June 2025 decision to remove tariffs on imports from 53 African countries contrasted with the lack of any comparable U.S. tariff-free regime.

This asymmetry between investment and narrative matters because public perception carries strategic weight. Afrobarometer surveys consistently show that China is viewed positively by many African publics, not because of ideological affinity, but because Chinese projects are visible, fast, and tied to infrastructure that citizens use in daily life. By contrast, U.S. initiatives — though often higher in governance quality or technological sophistication — are less visible and less consistently championed.

U.S. engagement tends to concentrate on geopolitical priorities — critical minerals, supply chains, and targeted infrastructure. While strategically coherent, this reinforces perceptions of a transactional approach focused on great-power competition over African development. The Trump administration’s “America First in Africa” framing — prioritizing commercial diplomacy and minerals over aid — clarifies this shift, welcomed by some for its candor but viewed cautiously by others for its conditionality.

What emerges is not simply competition over resources, but a divergence in models: China embeds itself across the full value chain, while the United States concentrates on selective, strategic entry points without a consistently articulated long-term framework.

African Agency: emerging but nascent

Alongside — and increasingly shaping — state policy, African agency is also emerging at the societal level. Criticism of Chinese firms over labor and environmental practices has prompted community responses through monitoring, litigation, and investigative action, signaling that investors must engage not only governments but also assertive local actors. In Zambia, victims of the Kafue River spill filed a landmark High Court case in September 2025 against Chinese mining operators, setting an important precedent for corporate accountability.

African governments and regional institutions are beginning to experiment with mechanisms to influence global supply chains, though outcomes remain uneven and highly contingent on domestic capacity and coordination. Tools such as export controls, local-processing mandates, and regional coordination through the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) offer potential levers to shape investment, industrial strategy, and the conditions under which foreign actors operate.

The African Union’s Agenda 2063 and African Mining Vision (AMV) anchor agency over critical minerals, linking resource wealth to industrialization and local value capture. Building on these, the African Green Minerals Strategy (AGMS) promotes job creation and climate-resilient development over raw exports. The September 2025 Addis Ababa Declaration on Climate Change and Call to Action reinforces this shift, tying finance to stronger African agency and urging the continent to seize the transition rather than continue exporting raw materials.

Over a dozen countries — including Ghana, Malawi, Namibia, and Nigeria — have implemented restrictions requiring investors to establish on-continent processing, facilitate technology transfer, and create jobs. Zimbabwe’s 2022 raw lithium export ban, followed by the planned January 2027 ban on lithium concentrates, underscores resource nationalism and local value addition, while Zambia and the DRC launched a joint Battery and Electric Vehicle (BEV) initiative in April 2024 to develop a regional value chain.

In parallel, the DRC in mid-2025 replaced temporary cobalt export bans with a sophisticated quota system designed to stabilize global prices — a move that, supported by Chinese technical expertise, helped lift cobalt prices from a low of $21,500 per tonne in early 2025 to over $45,000 per tonne by December. As of early 2026, the DRC has gone further, sending Washington a shortlist of state-owned mining assets available for American investment, demonstrating that African governments are actively leveraging great-power competition for strategic advantage.

The Zimbabwe case is instructive, as it illustrates both the potential of resource leverage and persistent challenges related to driving local value addition. The raw lithium ban spurred significant investment, especially from Chinese companies, in building lithium processing facilities in the country.  Yet illegal exports continue. Critical infrastructure deficits, particularly in energy and transport, an unstable electricity grid, global price volatility, limited technical expertise, and coordination challenges with private actors underscore the constraints on turning resource control into sustainable industrial advantage.  

The intersection of mineral abundance and low electrification presents an opportunity for integrated industrial-energy ecosystems linking mining, processing, manufacturing, and domestic deployment of renewables. Regional coordination through AfCFTA incentivizes pan-African value chains, while diplomatic diversification allows governments to leverage great-power competition for better terms, including equity stakes, technology transfer, local-content requirements, and environmental or labor standards. 

China’s FOCAC commitments acknowledge African leadership, while U.S. and European actors face growing pressure to offer competitive terms. More African countries are assembling electric buses, motorcycles, and public vehicles locally, alongside policies mandating technology transfer to boost value addition. Together, these trends point to a gradual, experimental shift in Africa’s role: despite ongoing external competition, governments are moving beyond passive engagement. Agency remains uneven and context-specific, but influence over investment, industrialization, and resource governance is increasing.

Scenarios and strategic implications

Over the next decade, the global green transition in Africa is likely to evolve in one of several broad patterns. These trajectories will be determined less by resource endowments alone than by the interaction between domestic policy capacity and external partnership models.

In a best-case scenario, a small group of African states successfully implement local-processing mandates, supported by AfCFTA coordination, and develop emerging industrial clusters in batteries and renewable technologies. The DRC–Zambia Battery and Electric Vehicle Special Economic Zone is the clearest example, with the potential by 2030 to rival established hubs in Southeast Asia. Even so, gains would remain concentrated, with many countries continuing as raw-material suppliers due to persistent institutional and infrastructure constraints.

A second, more fragmented scenario is more likely: a selective and uneven landscape. A few first movers may achieve partial industrialization, but most of the continent continues to export raw materials with limited local value capture. External actors, particularly China, maintain dominant influence in regions with weak governance or infrastructure. In this context, Africa exerts some leverage but has not yet fully redefined global supply-chain dynamics.

In a less optimistic scenario, African agency remains constrained, and the continent continues to function primarily as a supplier of raw materials. Vertical integration, processing, and manufacturing remain dominated by external actors, particularly China. Beijing's investments in next-generation alternative battery technologies — such as sodium-ion batteries, which do not rely on lithium, and lithium iron phosphate batteries, which do not rely on cobalt, manganese, or nickel — could reduce demand for African minerals precisely as African countries are building processing capacity around them, posing a long-term structural risk. Economic gains for African states are limited, and dependency persists, locking the continent into continued vulnerability to fluctuations in global commodity markets and external policy shifts.

Across scenarios, several strategic imperatives stand out. African governments can strengthen their position by investing in infrastructure, human capital, and governance while refining industrial policy. The $160 billion annual energy financing gap remains the central constraint; closing it — through blended finance, development banks, and initiatives like Mission 300 — is critical to unlocking industrial potential. External partners, particularly the United States and Europe, will need consistent, credible engagement aligned with African-led priorities, rather than relying on capital alone. In this competitive geoeconomic landscape, perceived reliability and visibility will increasingly shape outcomes.

Conclusion

Africa’s role in the global energy transition is not simply expanding. It is being renegotiated. The continent is now a central arena where material power, technological competition, and narrative politics intersect. China's long-standing presence, industrial coherence, and diplomatic continuity have positioned it as a formidable partner. The United States' rising investment demonstrates renewed engagement, but inconsistent messaging and the uncertainty around AGOA risk undermining its influence.

Yet both powers are increasingly compelled to operate on terms partially defined by African actors. Through AfCFTA, industrial policies, strategic diplomacy, and public demand for value addition, African actors are asserting agency in shaping the future of global supply chains. The decisive contests of the next decade — over processing capacity, standards, technology transfer, environmental governance, and industrial ecosystems — will unfold across African states that are no longer passive arenas but active geopolitical architects.

China’s rise and deep integration with African economies have enabled new infrastructure and industries, but also increase exposure to its domestic slowdown. As Beijing’s investment-driven model loses momentum, African governments will need to adjust to the resulting headwinds. At the same time, China’s development of alternative battery chemistries that reduce reliance on cobalt and lithium could erode Africa’s resource leverage just as processing capacity expands. Managing this risk — through partner diversification, accelerated industrialization, and deeper regional integration — is now a central strategic challenge.

The central question is no longer whether Africa will matter in the global green transition, but whether it can convert structural importance into sustained economic and industrial power. The answer will depend not only on external competition, but on the continent’s ability to align policy, infrastructure, and regional coordination into a coherent development strategy.

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