The African Century will be built through green industrialisation, not mined from the ground

Africa's green minerals present a historic opportunity for the continent, but realizing it will require generations working together to combine experience with fresh thinking and create opportunities for Africans to turn the continent's natural wealth and human potential into shared prosperity. The story of valuable minerals being extracted from the ground without significantly improving the lives of local communities is all too familiar across Africa.

However, this does not have to define Africa's future. As young leaders and experienced policymakers gather at the One Young World Summit in Cape Town, the question of what it will take to make this the African Century is a central focus of the summit agenda. The global transition towards cleaner energy and industrial production has created an extraordinary opportunity for Africa to build a different economic future, moving away from a position in global supply chains established during colonialism, where exporting raw materials allowed higher-value processing, manufacturing, and technological development to take place elsewhere.

Brief written by urgent.news from Daily Maverick's own syndicated text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.