Africa's chance to move from resource supplier to industrial innovator

An electric vehicle at a charging station in Nairobi. [Wilberforce Okwiri, Standard]

For decades, the direction of global industry has been set far from Africa. The continent is too often seen only as a supplier of the raw materials, cobalt, lithium, and manganese that power batteries, electric vehicles, and sustainable technologies developed and made elsewhere. Those resources rarely power Africa’s own industrial development. Instead, value-added manufacturing and its benefits flow elsewhere.