Africa is increasingly confronting one of the continent’s most persistent economic challenges: how to move beyond exporting raw materials and capture more of the value created from its natural resources.
The continent possesses enormous deposits of minerals needed for modern industries, including cobalt, copper, lithium, manganese, graphite and rare earth elements. Yet much of Africa’s mineral wealth still leaves the continent in relatively unprocessed form, while higher-value products are manufactured elsewhere.
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That model is beginning to face a new challenge as African governments and regional institutions increasingly push for local processing, beneficiation and manufacturing.
The African Development Bank’s July 2026 ministerial forum on critical minerals reflected this changing approach. African ministers, continental institutions, private-sector representatives and development partners called for critical minerals to become drivers of industrialisation, job creation and economic transformation through value addition and regional value chains.
The Democratic Republic of Congo and Zambia provide one of the clearest examples.
The two countries are seeking to build a regional battery value chain that connects the DRC’s mineral resources with Zambia’s processing and manufacturing capabilities. A planned special economic zone is intended to support the production of electric-vehicle battery precursors, allowing the countries to move further downstream instead of simply exporting minerals. The African Development Bank has identified the initiative as an example of how regional integration can create shared industrial capacity.
The economic logic is straightforward. Processing a mineral before export can significantly increase its value and create additional demand for engineers, technicians, transport companies, energy providers and manufacturers.
The AfDB’s research on critical minerals illustrates the potential using cobalt. The DRC’s move towards domestic processing increased the unit value of cobalt from approximately $5.80 per kilogram at extraction to about $16.20 after basic processing. By 2022, the country’s processed cobalt exports had reached around $6 billion, compared with only about $16.7 million in unprocessed cobalt exports at the earlier stage examined in the analysis.
This demonstrates why beneficiation has become an industrial policy priority.
The opportunity goes beyond minerals.
Across Africa, governments and businesses are seeking to build processing industries around agricultural commodities, oil and gas, metals and other natural resources. The objective is to create manufacturing ecosystems in which raw materials are transformed into intermediate and finished products closer to where they are produced.
Morocco offers another illustration of this broader industrial shift. The country has developed a substantial automotive manufacturing industry, attracting international manufacturers and building a network of local suppliers. More recently, investment in electric-vehicle and battery-related industries has created an opportunity to connect the country’s manufacturing base with Africa’s wider critical-minerals economy.
In August 2026, Chinese automaker Chery acquired Nissan’s former Rosslyn plant near Pretoria, South Africa, with plans to produce plug-in hybrid and electric vehicles as well as vehicles under its Jetour brand. The development reflects a broader movement in which international manufacturers are increasingly locating production inside African markets rather than relying entirely on exports.
The African Continental Free Trade Area adds another important dimension.
Local processing makes more economic sense when manufacturers can sell to a larger regional market. Instead of building factories solely to serve individual national economies, companies can potentially produce components, processed minerals or finished goods in one country and distribute them across neighbouring markets.
This is where regional value chains become particularly important.
The DRC may possess minerals needed for battery production, Zambia can contribute processing capacity, South Africa has automotive manufacturing expertise, Morocco has developed a strong vehicle-production ecosystem, while other African countries possess additional minerals, skills or markets. Connecting these capabilities could create a genuinely African industrial network.
However, building such value chains requires more than mineral deposits.
Reliable electricity, transport infrastructure, customs efficiency, skilled workers and access to long-term capital are all essential. Processing facilities are energy-intensive, while manufacturing requires specialised technical skills and reliable supply chains.
This is why the current push for value addition is increasingly linked to infrastructure and energy policy.
Renewable energy could also become an important competitive advantage. African countries with abundant solar, hydro, wind and geothermal resources have an opportunity to provide cleaner and potentially competitive power to industrial zones, particularly as global manufacturers face growing pressure to reduce the carbon intensity of their supply chains.
There is also a major opportunity for African financial institutions and pension funds to participate. Industrial projects require patient capital, and African institutional investors control substantial pools of long-term savings that could support infrastructure and manufacturing if appropriate investment structures are developed.
The AfDB’s July 2026 ministerial forum emphasised the need for blended finance, guarantees and institutional capital to address the investment gap surrounding critical minerals and value chains.
For Africa, the stakes are high.
The global energy transition and the expansion of electric mobility are increasing demand for many of the minerals found on the continent. If Africa continues to export primarily raw materials, much of the economic value associated with this demand will continue to be created elsewhere.
If it succeeds in processing those materials, manufacturing components and eventually producing finished goods, the benefits could include higher-value employment, technology transfer, stronger domestic industries and greater export diversification.
The shift from raw materials to finished products will not happen overnight. It will require coordinated policies, regional cooperation and sustained investment.
But the direction is becoming clearer.
Africa is no longer simply asking how much it can extract. Increasingly, the question is how much it can make.
That shift could determine whether the continent’s natural-resource wealth remains a source of dependency or becomes the foundation for a new era of industrialisation.
