THE ISLAMIST QUESTION (17). Can Islamists and the Far Left Work Together?

 

THE ISLAMIST QUESTION

17. Can Islamists and the Far Left Work Together?

When Ideological Enemies Discover Common Causes

Central question:

Can two political movements with fundamentally different visions of society cooperate when they identify a common enemy?

The question is deliberately provocative.

The far left traditionally draws from:

• Marxism;

• socialism;

• anti-capitalism;

• secularism or radical laïcité in some traditions;

• class politics;

• internationalism;

• anti-imperialism.

Islamist movements, by contrast, derive political legitimacy from a religious worldview and seek a greater role for Islamic norms and identity in public life.

They are not the same ideology.

They may disagree profoundly over:

• religion;

• gender;

• sexuality;

• secularism;

• the state;

• individual freedoms;

• social organisation;

• and the ultimate source of political legitimacy.

So why would they ever cooperate?

Because political alliances do not always require ideological agreement.

Sometimes they require only:

a common opponent, a common cause, or a common political objective.

And that is where the investigation begins.

The Historical Puzzle

The idea of cooperation between left-wing and Islamist currents did not begin with the Gaza war.

French pro-Palestinian activism has historically contained several distinct political traditions.

The French Institute of International Relations (Ifri) identifies four major strands in the development of French support for the Palestinian cause:

• Arab networks;

• left-wing Catholics;

• sections of the Gaullist movement;

• and the far left.

Over time, Muslim activists became increasingly prominent.

Sciences Po's historical account similarly traces the Palestinian cause through anti-colonial politics, immigration politics, the French left and the radical left long before the current generation of students.

This gives us an important warning:

Not every political convergence around Palestine is an Islamist-left alliance.

Sometimes it is simply the continuation of a decades-old solidarity movement.

But Something Changed

There is nevertheless a significant evolution.

Ifri has noted that alongside the older secular and left-wing Palestinian solidarity movement, a pan-Islamic dimension became increasingly visible, particularly from the 2000s onward. In some demonstrations, religious practices appeared that surprised activists from the earlier secular Palestinian movement.

That creates an important historical transition:

Earlier model

Palestine

→ anti-colonialism

→ internationalism

→ left-wing solidarity.

Later model

Palestine

→ Muslim solidarity

→ identity politics

→ religious activism.

Current environment

Both traditions can exist simultaneously.

That is the environment in which tactical cooperation becomes possible.

Ideological Enemies Can Still Share a Political Space

Consider the apparent contradiction.

A radical-left activist may say:

“Israel represents colonialism and Western imperialism.”

A Muslim activist may say:

“Palestinians are being oppressed because they are Muslims.”

Those explanations are not identical.

But both may arrive at:

“France should change its policy toward Israel and Gaza.”

That is enough to create cooperation on a specific campaign.

This is the fundamental distinction:

Shared action does not necessarily mean shared ideology.

The Coalition Model

The documentary should therefore stop thinking in terms of:

Left + Islamists = one movement

and instead investigate:

Issue coalition

Palestine

anti-racism

opposition to government policy

opposition to the political right

criticism of police/security policy

Temporary political cooperation

The participants may still disagree profoundly about almost everything else.

This is normal coalition politics.

The French Campus as a Laboratory

Universities provide an unusually useful environment for testing this.

The same campus can contain:

• FSE activists;

• EMF activists;

• independent Palestine committees;

• LFI supporters;

• NPA activists;

• environmental activists;

• anti-racist organisations;

• Jewish students;

• Muslim students;

• secular students;

• Christian students;

• international students.

They may disagree about religion.

But they can cooperate on:

a campus resolution concerning Gaza.

That does not prove an ideological merger.

It demonstrates issue-based cooperation.

The EMF–FSE Connection

This is where the documentary acquires a concrete case study.

In May 2026, Higher Education Minister Philippe Baptiste told the National Assembly that an EMF-supported candidate entered the CNOUS following an alliance between:

FSE — described by the minister as a radical student union close to LFI

and EMF.

He described the result as one elected substitute among the 54 members and substitutes of the CNOUS board. He also said government services were monitoring EMF's development and possible institutionalisation.

This is verified parliamentary evidence of an electoral alliance.

But notice what it does not prove.

It does not establish that:

• FSE is Islamist;

• EMF is far left;

• the two organisations share an ideology;

• they have a permanent alliance;

• the alliance extends beyond student elections;

• or either organisation controls the other.

The evidence establishes:

They cooperated in a specific institutional contest.

That is already significant.

Why Would FSE Cooperate With EMF?

The answer may be entirely strategic.

Suppose FSE wants:

• more votes;

• greater representation;

• stronger opposition to the political right;

• broader student mobilisation.

EMF wants:

• institutional representation;

• protection of Muslim students;

• influence over student policy;

• participation in university governance.

Their interests overlap.

Neither side needs to abandon its underlying ideology.

This is classic coalition behaviour.

The Government's Interpretation

The French government has interpreted the EMF issue through the lens of possible Islamist “entrisme.”

In Parliament, Minister Baptiste said the government was attentive to EMF's institutional development and possible rapprochements with other organisations. He specifically identified the FSE–EMF alliance as an example.

That is an important official claim.

But it must be labelled correctly:

Government assessment — not judicial finding.

The same minister also provided an important qualification.

He said intelligence work concerning universities was relatively marginal and characterised the number of people involved as extremely small relative to the overall student population.

That qualification is essential to the documentary.

The EMF Position

EMF publicly presents itself very differently.

The organisation describes itself as a student association focused on:

• student representation;

• social assistance;

• culture;

• academic support;

• civic engagement;

• combating discrimination.

It says it is independent of political parties.

It also explicitly rejects the characterization that it is a Muslim Brotherhood organisation.

Therefore the documentary should place the two claims beside each other:

EMF's position

Independent student organisation serving Muslim students and the wider student community.

French government/security concern

Organisation situated within or connected to a broader Islamist network.

The documentary should then investigate the evidence between those two descriptions.

The Muslim Brotherhood Question

The Interior Ministry's 2025 report specifically investigated the Muslim Brotherhood and political Islam in France. The ministry says senior officials were commissioned in April 2024 to document the reality of political Islam in France, and the report was published in May 2025.

The report is therefore an important primary source.

But there is a methodological problem.

There is a major difference between:

formal membership

and:

institutional proximity

and:

ideological similarity

and:

cooperation

and:

command.

These must not be collapsed.

The Five-Level Test

Every alleged “Islamist–left alliance” should be classified at one of five levels.

LEVEL 1 — Shared issue

Two organisations attend the same Palestine demonstration.

Weak evidence of alliance.

LEVEL 2 — Joint activity

They organise a demonstration together.

Evidence of operational cooperation.

LEVEL 3 — Institutional alliance

They run a joint electoral list or campaign.

Stronger evidence of political cooperation.

LEVEL 4 — Repeated strategic cooperation

The same personnel, funding, meetings and campaigns repeatedly overlap.

Evidence of an enduring network.

LEVEL 5 — Strategic political agreement

Documents or communications demonstrate deliberate coordination toward shared political objectives.

Strong evidence of an actual alliance.

This framework prevents the documentary from treating a photograph of two people at the same demonstration as proof of an ideological conspiracy.

Palestine Is the Most Important Test

The Gaza war has created the largest contemporary opportunity for these networks to interact.

Palestine already had a long history inside the French left.

The post-2023 mobilisation brought in a much wider range of Muslim youth and student activists.

Sciences Po's historical analysis notes that Islamist movements such as Hamas and Hezbollah increasingly became important actors in the Palestinian question after the late 20th century, while also stressing that anti-Zionism does not necessarily equal antisemitism.

That creates a complicated political ecosystem.

One demonstration can contain:

humanitarian activists

anti-imperialists

radical-left activists

Muslim identity activists

Islamist activists

without all of them sharing the same objectives.

The Critical Question: Who Sets the Agenda?

This is the forensic question.

Suppose FSE and EMF organise an event.

We need to know:

Who proposed it?

Who wrote the statement?

Who chose the speakers?

Who paid for it?

Who designed the posters?

Who promoted it online?

Who negotiated with the university?

Who recruited participants?

Who decided the slogans?

Who decided what was excluded?

This is far more revealing than simply asking:

“Were they both there?”

Personnel Overlap

The next investigation should map people, not merely organisations.

For example:

Person A

FSE → Palestine committee → another association.

Person B

EMF → FEMYSO → Palestine organisation.

Person C

LFI activist → student organisation → Palestine campaign.

Person D

University association → municipal politics → Muslim organisation.

Repeated personnel overlap can demonstrate a network.

But even then:

Network overlap ≠ central command.

People can belong to several organisations because they share political interests.

Funding Overlap

Money provides another test.

Investigate:

• university grants;

• CVEC funding;

• membership dues;

• donations;

• European grants;

• private foundations;

• political-party funding;

• event sponsorship;

• foreign funding.

The question is not:

“Did this organisation receive public money?”

The question is:

“Who received it, how much, for what purpose, and did the funds support the alleged political activity?”

A grant for a student food programme does not establish funding for Islamist mobilisation.

A grant explicitly financing political campaigning would be a very different matter.

The Senate Evidence

A May 2026 Senate question alleged that EMF-supported lists obtained:

• 11 CROUS seats in February 2026;

• 3 CNOUS seats in April 2026.

The same parliamentary question alleged that some EMF events at Nanterre and Lyon received CVEC funding.

But these are parliamentary allegations/questions, not final government findings.

That distinction should appear on screen.

CLAIM MADE IN PARLIAMENT

Government response

Official financial records

University records

Actual beneficiaries and expenditures

Only the last stages can establish the money trail.

A Particularly Interesting Alliance: FSE + EMF

The FSE–EMF relationship deserves its own forensic case study.

FSE publicly describes itself in explicitly radical-left terms, including:

• class struggle;

• anti-capitalism;

• anti-imperialism;

• anti-racism;

• anti-sexism.

EMF describes itself through Muslim ethics, student representation and civic engagement.

Those are different ideological languages.

Yet they found sufficient common ground to cooperate electorally.

That does not prove an ideological merger.

It demonstrates something potentially more important:

Political interests can overcome ideological distance.

The “Enemy of My Enemy” Mechanism

Temporary coalitions frequently form around perceived common opponents.

Potential common targets include:

• the political right;

• far-right student organisations;

• government security policy;

• police practices;

• Israeli government policy;

• university restrictions on Palestine activism.

A radical-left organisation might frame the struggle as:

anti-racism + anti-imperialism.

A Muslim organisation might frame it as:

protection of Muslim dignity + Palestinian rights.

Both can oppose the same policy.

That is sufficient for cooperation.

But Cooperation Has Limits

The documentary should also search for evidence of conflict between the two camps.

For example:

Gender

Would an explicitly feminist radical-left organisation accept Islamist views on gender?

LGBTQ+ rights

Would the coalition survive disagreement over sexuality?

Secularism

Would radical-left secularists tolerate religious political claims?

Religious authority

Would Muslim activists accept Marxist anti-religious traditions?

Political violence

Would both sides accept the same definition of legitimate resistance?

Democracy

Would they agree about the role of religion in law?

If the coalition collapses whenever these issues arise, that would support:

temporary tactical alliance

rather than:

ideological convergence.

The Red-Green Alliance Hypothesis

We can now formulate the hypothesis scientifically.

H1 — No meaningful alliance

The apparent cooperation consists primarily of coincidental participation around Palestine and anti-racism.

H2 — Tactical alliance

Organisations cooperate on specific issues while retaining fundamentally different ideologies.

H3 — Electoral alliance

The organisations cooperate principally because both seek institutional representation and political influence.

H4 — Network convergence

Personnel and organisational relationships increasingly overlap across campaigns.

H5 — Strategic ideological convergence

A durable political coalition is emerging around a common worldview.

H6 — Islamist exploitation of left-wing infrastructure

Islamist actors use broader left-wing campaigns to reach audiences they could not otherwise reach.

H7 — Left-wing exploitation of Muslim networks

Radical-left organisations use Muslim identity networks to expand their political base.

Several hypotheses can be true simultaneously.

The Most Important Distinction

There are actually three different questions.

Question A

Do individuals from the two political environments cooperate?

There is evidence that they do in particular contexts.

Question B

Do organisations cooperate?

The FSE–EMF CNOUS alliance provides a concrete example.

Question C

Do they share a common long-term political project?

That remains much harder to establish.

The documentary should never use evidence for A or B as automatic proof of C.

The 2026 Student Revolt

Now connect this back to the central documentary.

The school movement began with educational grievances.

The evidence currently does not establish that Islamist organisations created it.

Nor does it establish that the radical left created it.

But once a movement becomes large enough, established political networks have incentives to enter.

That produces:

an opportunity structure.

A spontaneous movement creates:

people

attention

infrastructure

political energy

media visibility.

Existing organisations can attempt to connect themselves to that energy.

That is not necessarily manipulation.

It is often ordinary politics.

The Critical Timeline

We should construct a chronology:

BEFORE THE STUDENT REVOLT

What relationships already existed between:

• FSE;

• EMF;

• Palestine committees;

• LFI;

• other activist networks?

SEPTEMBER 2026

The school revolt begins.

Were these organisations involved immediately?

Or did they enter later?

OCTOBER 2026

The movement expands.

Do these organisations begin providing:

• logistics;

• lawyers;

• media;

• transport;

• political messaging;

• protest coordination?

The timing is critical.

If an organisation appears after the movement becomes large, that supports opportunistic participation.

If evidence shows it was preparing the mobilisation before the first protests, the interpretation changes.

The Digital Forensic Test

Search:

• TikTok;

• Instagram;

• X;

• Telegram;

• Facebook;

• student WhatsApp groups where legally accessible;

• public Discord channels.

Track:

first appearance

resharing

translation

graphic design

calls to action

location changes

coordination.

The key question:

Did the same organisational network repeatedly initiate mobilisation across apparently independent schools?

If yes, that would be significant.

If content spreads primarily through peer-to-peer imitation, the evidence points toward decentralised diffusion.

The Language Test

Political alliances leave linguistic fingerprints.

Compare statements from:

• FSE;

• EMF;

• Palestine committees;

• LFI;

• FEMYSO;

• other activist organisations.

Look for repeated phrases concerning:

• colonialism;

• genocide;

• Islamophobia;

• racism;

• police violence;

• imperialism;

• Zionism;

• secularism;

• French foreign policy.

Then determine:

Who introduced the terminology first?

and:

Did other organisations subsequently adopt it?

That would help identify ideological diffusion.

The Hamas Boundary

This investigation must maintain a hard analytical boundary.

There is a fundamental difference between:

support for Palestinian civilians

and

support for Palestinian statehood

and

opposition to Israeli government policy

and

support for Hamas

and

glorification of attacks on civilians

and

organisational support for Hamas.

These cannot be treated as interchangeable.

A coalition around Palestinian statehood does not prove an Islamist alliance.

A specific activist's endorsement of Hamas does not prove that an entire student organisation endorses Hamas.

Every claim must be tied to the individual or organisation actually making it.

The Anti-Semitism Boundary

The same principle applies to antisemitism.

Criticism of Israel is not inherently antisemitic.

But the investigation should identify:

• explicit anti-Jewish statements;

• collective blame;

• conspiracy theories;

• Holocaust denial;

• exclusion of Jews because they are Jewish;

• glorification of antisemitic violence.

The documentary should quote and contextualise specific statements rather than assign collective guilt.

That is especially important because Palestine activism contains both legitimate political criticism and, in some cases, documented antisemitic rhetoric.

The Government's Counterargument

The government and some French political figures argue that Islamist networks have developed strategies of influence within civil society and institutions.

The Interior Ministry's 2025 report is the principal official source for that broader concern.

But an important counterweight comes from the government's own higher-education minister.

He explicitly said the intelligence picture concerning universities was limited and that the number of people involved was extremely small relative to the student population.

That creates an important documentary paradox:

The state can identify a potential network while simultaneously acknowledging that it represents a very small fraction of university students.

Both facts can be true.

The Opposite Counterargument

The far-left and Muslim student organisations can make an equally important argument:

Coalition is not conspiracy.

If two organisations cooperate against the far right, oppose racism and support Palestine, that may simply be democratic coalition politics.

The burden of proof therefore rests on showing something beyond cooperation:

• hidden coordination;

• ideological recruitment;

• financial dependency;

• organisational control;

• systematic political direction.

Without such evidence, the conclusion should remain:

tactical cooperation.

What Would Prove a Deeper Alliance?

The documentary should establish a threshold.

Strong evidence would include:

1. Joint strategy documents

Explicit plans for cooperation.

2. Repeated joint campaigns

Not one isolated demonstration.

3. Shared personnel

Leaders moving between organisations.

4. Shared financing

Money crossing organisational boundaries.

5. Shared infrastructure

Offices, communications systems, event logistics.

6. Shared recruitment

One organisation directing supporters toward another.

7. Strategic messaging

Evidence that organisations deliberately coordinate narratives.

8. Common political objectives

Agreement extending beyond one issue.

That would move the story from:

coalition

toward:

political network.

What Would Falsify the Alliance Hypothesis?

An investigation must also ask what evidence would disprove it.

Suppose we find:

• no recurring personnel overlap;

• no shared financing;

• no common strategy;

• no coordinated messaging;

• no recruitment;

• no operational dependence;

• repeated ideological disagreements;

• cooperation limited to Palestine or anti-far-right campaigns.

Then the stronger alliance hypothesis weakens considerably.

That is just as important a finding.

The Most Interesting Possibility

The evidence may eventually point to neither:

“There is no alliance.”

nor:

“There is one unified Islamist-left movement.”

Instead, we may find:

A flexible ecosystem of temporary alliances.

One campaign:

FSE + EMF

Another:

LFI + Palestine committees

Another:

human-rights groups + Muslim associations

Another:

student unions + trade unions

Participants cooperate where interests overlap and separate where ideology divides them.

That is much closer to how many modern political movements actually operate.

The Bigger Political Question

This leads to a broader question about French democracy.

Can radically different political movements cooperate without becoming one movement?

Absolutely.

The more important question is:

At what point does tactical cooperation become political dependency?

If:

A needs B's activists

and

B needs A's institutional legitimacy

then a mutually beneficial relationship can develop.

Over time, that can reshape political organisations themselves.

The 2027 Dimension

The timing makes this particularly significant.

France is approaching the 2027 presidential election.

Palestine has become a major dividing issue inside the French left. A September 2026 debate among left-wing presidential contenders showed Gaza and the question of cooperation with LFI producing sharp political divisions.

This means Palestine is no longer merely a foreign-policy question.

It is increasingly embedded in:

• French left-wing coalition politics;

• questions of political identity;

• relations with Muslim voters;

• debates over antisemitism;

• relations with Israel;

• and the future configuration of the French left.

That makes the student movement politically important even if it never becomes an electoral organisation.

The Documentary's Central Test

The investigation should ultimately ask:

When the far left and Islamist networks appear together, are we looking at coincidence, coalition, convergence or coordination?

Those four words should become the analytical vocabulary of this episode.

COINCIDENCE

They happen to participate in the same event.

COALITION

They deliberately cooperate on a specific cause.

CONVERGENCE

Their political positions increasingly overlap.

COORDINATION

They deliberately organise activities together.

The evidence required for each level is different.

PROVISIONAL FINDING

The evidence already establishes that politically distinct organisations can and do cooperate in specific French student and institutional contexts.

The FSE–EMF CNOUS electoral alliance is a concrete 2026 example.

French Palestine activism also has a long history in which secular left-wing, anti-colonial and Muslim currents have occupied overlapping political spaces.

But that does not establish a unified “Islamist-left movement.”

Nor does it establish that Islamist organisations control French student mobilisation.

The strongest evidence-based proposition at this stage is narrower:

Different ideological networks can form tactical alliances when their interests overlap, particularly around Palestine, anti-racism, opposition to the far right and criticism of government policy.

The investigative question is therefore not whether they are secretly identical.

They are not.

The real question is:

How much political cooperation can occur between ideological opponents before the cooperation itself becomes a meaningful political network?

And there is one more question.

Perhaps even more important:

Who gains more from the relationship?

Does the radical left gain access to new constituencies?

Does Islamist activism gain access to secular political institutions?

Do both gain?

Or does the relationship primarily benefit individual organisations while the broader student movement remains fundamentally independent?

That is the evidence trail for the next stage of the investigation.

NEXT INVESTIGATIVE STEP

Episode 18 — The Network Map

Who Knows Whom, Who Funds Whom, and Who Works With Whom?

Instead of another ideological debate, the next episode should become almost forensic.

Build a database of:

People

→ organisations

→ universities

→ student unions

→ Palestine committees

→ political parties

→ NGOs

→ funding

→ events

→ campaigns

→ digital accounts

→ electoral alliances.

Then calculate:

• personnel overlap;

• organisational overlap;

• event overlap;

• funding overlap;

• messaging overlap;

• leadership movement;

• campaign coordination.

The question becomes brutally simple:

Is there actually a network—or are we mistaking a collection of temporary political friendships for one?

That is where the documentary can move from political argument to network forensics.

By Jugo Ikeji-Uju. 

admin@ubuntusafa.com 

sappertekinc@gmail.com

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Why Has the Commonwealth Failed to Become a Major African Economic Force?

 

Why Has the Commonwealth Failed to Become a Major African Economic Force?

Africa is one of the Commonwealth's greatest concentrations of membership, population, resources and future economic potential. Yet the Commonwealth has not become a major force shaping African trade, industrialisation, infrastructure or investment. Why?

The paradox is striking.

The Commonwealth has 21 African member states, representing roughly 40% of Africa's population and about half of the continent's GDP. Across the wider organization are 56 countries and 2.7 billion people. 

It also claims an economic advantage: Commonwealth countries have, on average, about 21% lower bilateral trade costs than comparable non-Commonwealth partners. 

Yet there is no Commonwealth equivalent of:

• an African Commonwealth investment bank;
• a Commonwealth Africa trade corridor network;
• a major Commonwealth industrialization programme;
• a Commonwealth-wide African infrastructure strategy;
• a preferential Commonwealth Africa trade area;
• a major Commonwealth manufacturing platform;
• or a coordinated Commonwealth strategy connecting African markets with India, Singapore, Malaysia, Britain, Canada, Australia and the Caribbean.

The Commonwealth has access.

It has relationships.

It has institutions.

But it has not yet converted them into sufficient economic power.

The First Problem: The Commonwealth Was Never Designed to Be an Economic Bloc

This is the foundation of the problem.

The Commonwealth is a voluntary association of sovereign states, not a customs union or common market.

Its role has traditionally been:

consultation → cooperation → technical assistance → consensus.

Not:

common tariffs → common market → common industrial policy → common investment regime.

That distinction matters enormously.

The EU was designed progressively around economic integration.

The Commonwealth was designed around maintaining relationships among independent states.

Consequently, the Commonwealth can help an African country trade.

It cannot simply create a Commonwealth African market for that country.

The Commonwealth Has 21 African Members — But They Are Not One Economic Market

The 21 African Commonwealth members are extremely diverse.

They include:

• Nigeria;
• South Africa;
• Ghana;
• Kenya;
• Tanzania;
• Uganda;
• Zambia;
• Botswana;
• Namibia;
• Mauritius;
• Rwanda;
• Cameroon;
• Mozambique;
• Gabon;
• Togo;
• Sierra Leone;
• The Gambia;
• Malawi;
• Lesotho;
• Eswatini;
• Seychelles.

The Commonwealth itself notes that these 21 countries represent approximately 40% of Africa's population and half of its GDP. 

But they belong to different regional economic systems.

They participate in organizations such as:

ECOWAS

SADC

EAC

COMESA

ECCAS

and, increasingly, the continental AfCFTA framework.

Therefore, Commonwealth membership does not automatically determine African economic policy.

AfCFTA Is Actually the More Natural African Economic Platform

This is one of the most important reasons the Commonwealth has not become Africa's economic force.

Africa already has a project specifically designed to create a continental market:

The African Continental Free Trade Area.

The Commonwealth cannot realistically compete with that.

And it doesn't need to.

The smarter model would be:

AfCFTA integrates Africa internally; the Commonwealth connects African economies externally.

That could be extraordinarily powerful.

Imagine:

AfCFTA

African continental market

Commonwealth connectivity

India + Singapore + Malaysia + UK + Canada + Australia + Caribbean

The Commonwealth's missed opportunity is therefore not that it failed to create an African common market.

It is that it has not fully positioned itself as the bridge between the African market and the wider Commonwealth economic network.

The Commonwealth Has Been Too Much of a Facilitator

This is perhaps the central institutional criticism.

The Commonwealth Secretariat can:

• convene;
• advise;
• publish research;
• provide technical assistance;
• help governments reform regulations;
• connect businesses;
• facilitate investment;
• support trade negotiations.

Those functions matter.

But they are not the same as possessing capital, infrastructure or regulatory authority.

The Commonwealth's own 2025–2030 strategy describes its distinctive role as bringing countries together, building consensus, providing trusted technical advice and opening doors through political relationships. 

Those are valuable capabilities.

But consider the difference between:

"We can help Kenya attract investment."

and

"Here is a Commonwealth institution providing $5 billion in financing for Kenyan infrastructure."

The second creates much greater economic leverage.

The Commonwealth generally operates closer to the first model.

There Is No Commonwealth Economic Engine

This is the missing piece.

Africa needs:

capital

infrastructure

technology

manufacturing

energy

trade finance

logistics

market access.

The Commonwealth has programmes touching many of these areas.

But it lacks a single institution capable of combining them at scale.

Imagine a hypothetical:

Commonwealth Africa Development & Investment Bank

capitalized by participating governments and institutional investors.

It could finance:

• ports;
• railways;
• power plants;
• industrial parks;
• digital infrastructure;
• agricultural processing;
• mining beneficiation;
• manufacturing;
• SMEs.

That would be a fundamentally different level of Commonwealth economic engagement.

The absence of such an institution is one reason the Commonwealth's economic influence remains smaller than its network would suggest.

The Commonwealth Has Not Built Enough Physical Connectivity

Economic power ultimately requires infrastructure.

A declaration cannot move a container.

A summit cannot produce electricity.

A trade agreement cannot build a railway.

A business forum cannot automatically finance a port.

Africa's economic transformation therefore requires:

Ports

Railways

Roads

Power

Broadband

Data centres

Industrial zones

Air connectivity

Digital payments

This is where the Commonwealth's "connectivity" agenda needs to become much more concrete.

The Commonwealth Connectivity Agenda was established to increase trade and investment through physical, digital, regulatory, business and supply-side connectivity. 

But the organization remains primarily a facilitator.

The infrastructure itself generally has to come from governments, development banks and private investors.

The Commonwealth Has Not Sufficiently Mobilized African Capital

Another missed opportunity is internal African capital.

The discussion often focuses on:

British investment

Asian investment

Gulf investment

Chinese investment

American investment.

But African institutional capital is increasingly important.

Consider:

• pension funds;
• sovereign wealth funds;
• commercial banks;
• insurance companies;
• African development finance institutions;
• diaspora capital;
• private equity.

The Commonwealth could potentially create a platform connecting these pools of capital with investable projects across member countries.

That would make the relationship less dependent on external development assistance.

Trade Without Industrialization Is Not Enough

This is perhaps the biggest substantive issue.

Suppose Commonwealth Africa exports:

oil

gold

copper

cobalt

coffee

cocoa

cotton

lithium

other minerals.

Trade statistics may rise.

But if raw materials leave Africa and higher-value processing occurs elsewhere, Africa captures only part of the economic chain.

The Commonwealth's own 2025 research on African industrialization argues that existing global trade rules can constrain African industrial policy and economic transformation. 

That points toward a much bigger Commonwealth role:

Don't merely help Africa export more. Help Africa produce more.

Where Is the Commonwealth African Manufacturing Strategy?

Imagine a coordinated strategy around:

Automotive

African assembly and component manufacturing linked to Commonwealth markets.

Pharmaceuticals

Local production of medicines and medical equipment.

Agricultural processing

Cocoa → chocolate.

Cotton → textiles.

Cashews → processed foods.

Coffee → branded products.

Minerals

Ore → refined materials → components → manufactured products.

Technology

African software companies selling services throughout Commonwealth markets.

That would create value chains, not merely trade flows.

And value chains are where long-term economic power is created.

India Is an Enormous Untapped Commonwealth Link

This is particularly striking.

India is one of the world's largest economies.

Africa has:

• enormous resource potential;
• a rapidly expanding population;
• growing consumer markets;
• infrastructure needs;
• manufacturing opportunities.

India has:

• manufacturing capacity;
• pharmaceuticals;
• information technology;
• financial services;
• engineering;
• telecommunications;
• affordable technology solutions.

The Commonwealth could facilitate a much more systematic:

Africa–India Economic Corridor

covering:

manufacturing

pharmaceuticals

digital services

agriculture

energy

infrastructure

education

financial technology.

That would be a powerful Commonwealth economic proposition.

Yet much of this relationship occurs through bilateral and other regional channels rather than through the Commonwealth itself.

Singapore and Malaysia Are Also Strategically Important

The same applies to Southeast Asia.

Singapore has world-class capabilities in:

• ports;
• logistics;
• finance;
• digital infrastructure;
• trade facilitation.

Malaysia has strengths in:

• manufacturing;
• electronics;
• commodities;
• infrastructure;
• Islamic finance.

African Commonwealth countries need exactly these kinds of capabilities.

The Commonwealth could therefore connect:

African ports

with

Asian logistics expertise

and

African industrial zones

with

Asian manufacturing investment.

That would make the Commonwealth economically relevant in a way that historical UK-Africa relationships alone cannot achieve.

Britain Still Matters — But the Commonwealth Cannot Be "UK Plus Africa"

This is an important transformation.

Britain remains a major:

• financial centre;
• services economy;
• investment source;
• education hub;
• legal and professional-services centre.

Those links are valuable.

Commonwealth research confirms strong UK economic relationships with the 21 African Commonwealth members, supported partly by shared language, business procedures and legal systems. 

But if the Commonwealth's African economic strategy is essentially:

Britain → Africa

it is too narrow.

A modern strategy should be:

Africa ↔ Britain

Africa ↔ India

Africa ↔ Singapore

Africa ↔ Malaysia

Africa ↔ Canada

Africa ↔ Australia

Africa ↔ Caribbean

Africa ↔ Africa.

That is a Commonwealth network.

The Diaspora Is Another Underused Economic Asset

Commonwealth countries contain enormous African diaspora networks.

They provide:

• investment;
• expertise;
• entrepreneurship;
• professional networks;
• education;
• technology;
• market access.

These networks can reduce information and trust barriers.

The Commonwealth's broader trade research identifies diaspora networks as one component of its trade advantage. 

But the opportunity is much larger than cultural exchange.

Imagine a formal:

Commonwealth African Diaspora Investment Platform

connecting diaspora capital to vetted African projects.

That could include:

SMEs

housing

agriculture

healthcare

technology

manufacturing

renewable energy

logistics.

The Commonwealth could potentially become the network that makes those connections easier.

The Biggest Problem May Be Financing

African governments frequently face expensive financing and limited fiscal space.

The Commonwealth itself identifies debt, high inflation and limited access to affordable finance as major challenges for its members. It notes that small and vulnerable states are particularly exposed. 

That creates a fundamental problem:

How can countries industrialize if they cannot cheaply finance infrastructure?

Trade facilitation alone cannot solve that.

Africa needs:

long-term capital

risk guarantees

blended finance

trade finance

project preparation

currency-risk management

private investment.

The Commonwealth could play a larger convening role—but its ability to provide capital directly is limited.

The Commonwealth's US$2 Trillion Goal Shows Both Its Potential and Its Problem

The Commonwealth has set an objective of increasing intra-Commonwealth trade to US$2 trillion by 2030. 

This is significant.

But look at the distinction:

Trade ambition

versus

economic transformation.

More trade is useful.

But the more important question for Africa is:

What does that trade produce?

If it consists primarily of commodities and finished imports, its developmental impact is different from trade based on:

• manufacturing;
• services;
• technology;
• processed commodities;
• regional supply chains;
• African-owned enterprises.

The Commonwealth should therefore measure not just:

"How much do members trade?"

but:

"What productive capacity is that trade creating?"

The Commonwealth Has a Measurement Problem

This is consistent with a broader weakness in the organization.

A target can be announced.

A summit can be held.

A declaration can be issued.

A programme can be launched.

But the question is:

What changed?

For Africa, a serious Commonwealth scorecard would measure:

Area	What should be measured?
Trade	African exports to Commonwealth markets
Investment	Commonwealth FDI into Africa
Manufacturing	New productive capacity
Infrastructure	Projects completed
Jobs	Direct and indirect employment
SMEs	African firms entering Commonwealth markets
Finance	Trade/investment finance mobilized
Technology	Technology-transfer agreements
Value addition	Share of processed exports
Digital trade	Cross-border transactions
Logistics	Cost/time reductions
Ownership	African participation in projects

That would tell the world whether the Commonwealth is actually changing African economic outcomes.

The Commonwealth's Current Direction Is More Ambitious

It would be unfair to conclude that nothing is changing.

The current Secretary-General has explicitly placed trade and investment at the heart of Commonwealth renewal. At the 2026 Commonwealth Trade and Investment Summit, Shirley Botchwey argued for moving from the Commonwealth's existing trade advantage toward tangible economic transformation and emphasized public-private partnerships. Commonwealth

The 2025–2030 Strategic Plan similarly puts economic resilience alongside democratic and environmental resilience and calls for stronger engagement with the private sector and international organizations. 

There is also a growing emphasis on:

• digital trade;
• investment;
• small businesses;
• supply chains;
• regulatory coherence;
• finance.

So the question is increasingly not whether the Commonwealth recognizes the problem.

It is:

Can it execute at the scale Africa requires?

Why Has It Failed So Far? — The Eight Structural Reasons

The answer can now be summarized.

1. It was designed for cooperation, not economic integration.

2. It lacks a Commonwealth-wide economic authority.

3. It lacks a major Commonwealth African development-finance institution.

4. African members are already embedded in stronger regional economic blocs.

5. The Commonwealth has historically been stronger at dialogue than large-scale infrastructure execution.

6. Trade has not been sufficiently connected to industrialization and value addition.

7. Africa–Asia economic opportunities remain underdeveloped within the Commonwealth framework.

8. There has been insufficient measurement of whether Commonwealth programmes are transforming African economies.

These are structural issues rather than evidence that the Commonwealth has done nothing.

The Commonwealth's Greatest Missed Opportunity

Perhaps the most important missed opportunity is that the Commonwealth could have become the intercontinental economic bridge around Africa.

Think about the network:

Africa

Natural resources + young population + markets

India

Technology + manufacturing + pharmaceuticals + services

Singapore

Finance + logistics + port expertise

Malaysia

Manufacturing + technology + infrastructure

Britain

Finance + services + law + education

Canada

Capital + resources + technology

Australia

Mining + education + infrastructure + Indo-Pacific connections

Caribbean

Tourism + services + finance + creative industries

That is a remarkable network.

Yet it remains largely under-coordinated.

What Would a Real Commonwealth Africa Strategy Look Like?

If the organization wanted to become a major African economic force, it would need to move beyond conferences and technical assistance toward a structured economic programme.

Pillar 1 — Commonwealth–AfCFTA Partnership

Use AfCFTA as the African continental market and the Commonwealth as its external network.

Pillar 2 — Africa–Asia Investment Corridor

Connect African projects with Indian, Singaporean and Malaysian capital and technology.

Pillar 3 — Commonwealth Africa Infrastructure Platform

Identify and package major:

• ports;
• railways;
• power;
• digital;
• industrial;
• logistics

projects for investment.

Pillar 4 — African Industrialization Fund

Focus on value addition rather than raw commodity exports.

Pillar 5 — Commonwealth Trade Finance Facility

Help African SMEs actually finance international transactions.

Pillar 6 — African Diaspora Investment Network

Connect diaspora capital with investable African enterprises.

Pillar 7 — Digital Commonwealth Africa Market

Interoperable:

• payments;
• e-signatures;
• customs;
• invoices;
• trade documents;
• business registration.

Pillar 8 — African Business Expansion Programme

Help African companies expand into other Commonwealth markets.

That final objective would be crucial.

The Goal Should Not Be More Foreign Investment Alone

This distinction could determine whether the Commonwealth's African strategy succeeds.

The objective should not simply be:

"How much foreign capital can we bring into Africa?"

It should be:

"How much African productive capacity can Commonwealth cooperation create?"

Those are different questions.

A $1 billion mining investment with limited local processing is economically different from a $1 billion investment that creates:

mining → refining → manufacturing → exports → African supply chains.

Likewise:

foreign company operating in Africa

is different from:

African company becoming a multinational.

The second is a much deeper form of economic transformation.

Africa Could Actually Become the Commonwealth's Economic Engine

This is the paradox.

The Commonwealth often discusses how it can help Africa.

But perhaps the question should be reversed.

What if Africa becomes the force that renews the Commonwealth?

Africa provides:

markets

population

resources

entrepreneurs

energy potential

agriculture

critical minerals

maritime geography

digital growth

young consumers.

Asia provides:

capital + manufacturing + technology.

Europe provides:

finance + services + technology.

The Caribbean provides:

services + tourism + creative industries.

The Pacific provides:

maritime resources + climate expertise.

The Commonwealth could become the network connecting these economic assets.

The Central Question

So, why has the Commonwealth failed to become a major African economic force?

Not because Africa lacks importance.

Not because Commonwealth countries lack economic relationships.

Not because the Commonwealth has no trade programmes.

The deeper problem is that the organization has historically possessed network power without economic machinery.

It can convene the players.

It can facilitate introductions.

It can provide technical expertise.

It can reduce some trade friction.

But it has not yet built enough of the machinery that converts relationships into capital, infrastructure, industrial capacity and scalable African businesses.

The Commonwealth's current leadership appears to recognize this gap: its stated ambition is now to move trade and investment toward tangible economic transformation, with intra-Commonwealth trade targeted at US$2 trillion by 2030. 

The real test is therefore execution.

Can the Commonwealth move from being a network that connects African countries to being a network that helps African countries build economic power?

If it can, Africa could become one of the Commonwealth's greatest sources of relevance in the 21st century.

If it cannot, the organization risks remaining what it has often been accused of being:

a remarkably valuable network whose economic potential is substantially larger than its economic impact.

And that leads to the next question:

Why Has the Commonwealth Failed to Build a Strong Africa–Asia Economic Corridor?

By Jugo Ikeji-Uju. 

admin@ubuntusafa.com 

sappertekinc@gmail.com

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THE BIG PICTURE (14). Who Owns Africa’s Natural Resources — and Who Benefits?

 

THE BIG PICTURE

Who Owns Africa’s Natural Resources — and Who Benefits?

Africa is rich in minerals, oil, gas, forests, land and other natural assets. But ownership of a resource is not the same as capturing its economic value.

Africa has something the global economy increasingly needs.

The continent possesses enormous deposits of minerals, hydrocarbons, agricultural resources, forests, fisheries and renewable-energy potential. It is home to major reserves and production of commodities ranging from copper and cobalt to platinum-group metals, manganese, bauxite, uranium, gold, lithium, oil and natural gas.

The global energy transition and competition over advanced technologies have made some of these resources even more strategically important.

The World Bank's 2025 assessment highlights Africa's geological potential across 26 key minerals and notes that renewed exploration is being driven by demand associated with clean energy and advanced technologies. It also argues that stronger geological data, technology, infrastructure and balanced fiscal frameworks will be important if countries are to translate this potential into sustainable development.

Yet this raises a fundamental question:

If Africa possesses so many resources, why does resource wealth so often coexist with poverty, unemployment, weak infrastructure and limited industrialisation?

The answer cannot simply be that Africa has resources.

The more important question is:

Who controls the resource?

And beyond that:

Who finances its extraction?

Who owns the companies involved?

Who negotiates the contracts?

Who collects the taxes and royalties?

Who processes the raw material?

Who controls the technology?

Who provides the infrastructure?

Who captures the profits?

Who gets the jobs?

Who bears the environmental and social costs?

And ultimately:

How much of the resource's economic value remains inside Africa?

This is the deeper resource question.

Africa Is Not Poor in Natural Resources

It is important to begin with a basic fact.

Africa is not a resource-poor continent.

The African Union's own African Mining Vision recognises the continent's substantial mineral, fossil-fuel and other natural-resource endowments and argues that these resources should support broad-based socioeconomic development.

The resource portfolio includes:

• oil;

• natural gas;

• coal;

• copper;

• cobalt;

• lithium;

• manganese;

• platinum-group metals;

• chromium;

• bauxite;

• iron ore;

• gold;

• uranium;

• graphite;

• phosphate;

• nickel;

• rare-earth elements;

• timber;

• fisheries;

• agricultural land;

• freshwater;

• solar resources;

• wind resources.

But natural-resource abundance does not automatically produce economic development.

A country can export billions of dollars of minerals and still import most of the machinery required to extract them.

It can export crude oil while importing refined petroleum products.

It can export lithium-bearing ore while importing batteries.

It can export copper concentrate while importing sophisticated electrical equipment.

It can export agricultural commodities while importing processed food.

This is the central paradox.

Africa can possess the resource without controlling the value chain.

Ownership Is More Complicated Than It Looks

When people ask who owns Africa's natural resources, the answer is rarely as simple as "African governments" or "foreign companies."

There are several layers of ownership and control.

Layer 1: Legal ownership

In many countries, the state holds legal ownership of underground mineral resources or hydrocarbons.

Layer 2: Exploration rights

Governments grant companies licences to search for and develop resources.

Layer 3: Extraction rights

Companies may receive concessions, production-sharing agreements, mining licences or other rights allowing them to extract resources.

Layer 4: Financing

Banks, private-equity firms, sovereign funds, development-finance institutions and investors may provide the capital.

Layer 5: Technology

Specialised foreign companies may control advanced geological exploration, engineering, processing and mining technology.

Layer 6: Infrastructure

Ports, railways, pipelines, electricity systems and processing facilities determine whether a resource can be economically developed.

Layer 7: Processing

The greatest value may not be created when the resource is extracted.

It may be created later.

For example:

ore → concentrate → refined metal → component → finished product

The country controlling only the first stage may capture considerably less value than the country controlling several stages.

Layer 8: Marketing and trading

Commodity traders, international corporations and financial institutions can influence where resources are sold and at what prices.

Layer 9: Intellectual property

Modern resource industries increasingly depend on geological databases, software, processing technology, engineering expertise and proprietary technologies.

Layer 10: End markets

Ultimately, the greatest economic power often resides with whoever controls the final industrial market.

This means:

Resource sovereignty is not merely about owning the mine.

It is about having influence across the value chain.

The African Mining Vision Saw This Problem Coming

The African Union adopted the African Mining Vision (AMV) in 2009.

Its central idea was remarkably straightforward:

Africa should not treat mining as an isolated extraction industry.

Mining should become part of a broader process of industrialisation.

The AMV calls for transparent, equitable and optimal exploitation of mineral resources and argues for stronger local economic linkages, value addition, infrastructure, skills development and regional integration.

That distinction matters.

Imagine two economies.

Economy A

It extracts:

100 units of mineral value

and exports almost all of it as raw material.

Economy B

It extracts the same resource but develops:

• local engineering;

• processing;

• transportation;

• equipment maintenance;

• component manufacturing;

• technical services;

• research;

• downstream industries;

• export logistics.

The second economy has created a much larger economic ecosystem around the resource.

The mine is no longer simply a hole in the ground.

It becomes an industrial platform.

That is the fundamental philosophy behind the African Mining Vision.

---

The Resource Curse Is Not Simply About Resources

The phrase "resource curse" is often used to describe countries where natural-resource wealth is associated with weak economic performance, governance problems, conflict or inequality.

But resources themselves do not automatically create these outcomes.

The deeper problem is often the institutional system surrounding the resource.

Consider what happens when a government suddenly receives enormous resource revenues.

It may face incentives to:

• spend rapidly;

• distribute contracts politically;

• expand patronage;

• borrow against future resource income;

• weaken oversight;

• subsidise consumption;

• neglect other productive sectors;

• become dependent on commodity prices.

Meanwhile, citizens may expect resource wealth to immediately transform living standards.

When that transformation does not happen, distrust grows.

This can create a dangerous cycle:

resource wealth → political competition → rent seeking → weak institutions → poor investment → public dissatisfaction → political instability

But the opposite is also possible.

A country can use resource revenues to build:

• infrastructure;

• education;

• healthcare;

• sovereign wealth;

• industrial capacity;

• financial reserves;

• research institutions;

• domestic companies;

• transport networks.

The resource then becomes a platform for diversification rather than a substitute for diversification.

The Real Battle Is Over Economic Rent

A natural resource has a particular economic characteristic.

It exists before anyone manufactures it.

That creates what economists call resource rent.

If a mineral can be extracted for $30 per unit and sold for $100, there is potentially substantial economic rent.

The question becomes:

Who captures that rent?

Possible beneficiaries include:

• the state;

• shareholders;

• mining companies;

• oil companies;

• contractors;

• commodity traders;

• financiers;

• workers;

• local communities;

• foreign suppliers;

• domestic suppliers.

The answer depends heavily on the country's fiscal regime and negotiating capacity.

This is why royalties, corporate taxes, production-sharing agreements, bonuses, state participation and other fiscal instruments matter.

They determine how the economic value generated by extraction is divided.

The EITI's 2026 report on extractive revenues emphasises precisely this issue: resource-rich countries need stronger domestic revenue mobilisation and better oversight of what companies pay and governments receive.

A Billion-Dollar Mine Does Not Mean a Billion-Dollar Benefit

Suppose a mine produces $1 billion worth of minerals.

It would be misleading to say:

"The country made $1 billion."

The $1 billion represents the value of production.

From that amount may come:

• operating costs;

• wages;

• imported equipment;

• energy;

• transport;

• financing costs;

• taxes;

• royalties;

• dividends;

• supplier payments;

• debt repayment;

• profits.

The government may receive only a fraction.

The local economy may receive another fraction.

Foreign shareholders may receive another.

Foreign suppliers may receive another.

The key question is therefore not:

How much is the resource worth?

It is:

How is the value distributed?

This is a much more sophisticated way of thinking about resource wealth.

Taxation Matters

One of the most important mechanisms through which citizens benefit from natural resources is taxation.

If governments collect appropriate taxes and royalties, resource wealth can help finance:

• roads;

• schools;

• hospitals;

• electricity;

• water systems;

• railways;

• ports;

• digital infrastructure;

• research;

• social protection.

But taxation must balance competing objectives.

If fiscal terms are excessively burdensome, investment can become less attractive.

If fiscal terms are excessively generous, the public may receive too little of the economic rent.

The World Bank's 2025 work on African minerals similarly emphasises the importance of balanced regulatory and fiscal frameworks that can attract investment while enabling countries to capture development benefits.

The objective is therefore not simply:

"Tax companies as much as possible."

It is:

"Design a fiscal system that captures a fair share of resource rents while maintaining investment and production incentives."

That requires sophisticated economic modelling.

Governments Need Better Negotiating Capacity

A multinational corporation may have:

• geologists;

• lawyers;

• accountants;

• engineers;

• economists;

• tax specialists;

• commodity traders;

• international financing networks.

A government negotiating a major mining or petroleum contract needs comparable expertise.

Otherwise the negotiating relationship can become highly asymmetric.

This is one reason the African Mining Vision emphasises institutional capacity, geological knowledge, contract negotiation, taxation and governance.

A government cannot negotiate effectively over something it does not fully understand.

That means resource sovereignty begins partly with knowledge sovereignty.

Countries need to know:

• what they possess;

• where it is;

• how much exists;

• its quality;

• extraction costs;

• international prices;

• likely future demand;

• available technologies;

• environmental costs;

• infrastructure requirements;

• alternative investors;

• potential downstream industries.

Geological information is therefore an economic asset.

Data May Become One of Africa's Most Important Resource Assets

Modern mineral exploration is increasingly data-intensive.

The World Bank has highlighted the importance of geological databases and artificial intelligence in improving mineral exploration across Africa.

This creates an important shift.

Historically, the resource race was largely about:

Who owns the land?

Increasingly, it is also about:

Who possesses the geological data?

Advanced geological databases can help identify:

• mineral deposits;

• geological structures;

• exploration targets;

• resource potential;

• infrastructure requirements.

AI can then analyse enormous datasets to identify patterns that may otherwise take years to discover.

This means Africa needs investment not only in mining but also in:

• geological surveys;

• satellite data;

• geospatial systems;

• laboratories;

• universities;

• AI;

• computing;

• geological modelling;

• technical skills.

The continent cannot fully negotiate its resource future if it does not fully understand its resource base.

The Critical-Minerals Race Changes the Equation

The global energy transition has added a new strategic dimension.

Electric vehicles, batteries, electricity networks, renewable-energy systems and advanced technologies require large quantities of minerals and metals.

Africa possesses important resources relevant to these industries.

That gives the continent potential leverage.

But potential leverage is not the same as actual bargaining power.

Suppose global manufacturers urgently need a particular mineral.

An African country could simply export the raw material.

Or it could ask:

What industrial activity can we develop around this resource?

That might include:

• refining;

• precursor materials;

• battery components;

• metal processing;

• equipment manufacturing;

• research;

• recycling;

• logistics.

The second approach attempts to move Africa further up the value chain.

The African Union's Commodities Strategy explicitly seeks to move Africa from being primarily a raw-material supplier toward value addition, stronger commodity rents, local content and integration into global value chains.

But Africa Should Not Assume That Every Mineral Must Be Processed Domestically

There is an important counterargument.

Local processing can be expensive.

A refinery or processing plant requires:

• reliable electricity;

• water;

• transport;

• skilled workers;

• capital;

• technology;

• environmental controls;

• economies of scale;

• reliable markets.

Building an uneconomic processing facility simply because a country wants "value addition" can create another white elephant.

Therefore, the policy question should not be:

"Must everything be processed locally?"

It should be:

"Which stages of the value chain can Africa competitively capture, and what infrastructure and market conditions are necessary to do so?"

That is a much more practical question.

Regional processing may sometimes make more economic sense than every country attempting to build its own facility.

AfCFTA Could Change the Economics

One of Africa's biggest structural disadvantages has been fragmented markets.

A processing plant may not be commercially viable if it is serving only a small domestic market.

But the African Continental Free Trade Area potentially changes that calculation.

Instead of thinking:

Country A → domestic market

the strategy becomes:

Country A → African regional market → global market

UNECA has argued that AfCFTA can help reduce commodity dependence, support manufacturing and strengthen Africa's participation in global value chains.

In 2026, UNECA also noted that Africa's share of global merchandise trade had fallen to about 2.8% in 2025, while its contribution to global manufacturing value added remained below 2%.

This reveals the broader problem.

Africa does not simply need to export more.

It needs to produce more of what it currently imports and move into higher-value production.

The DRC Illustrates the Importance of Fiscal Capacity

The Democratic Republic of the Congo provides a particularly important case because of its major copper and cobalt resources.

The question is not merely whether the DRC has enormous mineral deposits.

It is whether the country can convert those deposits into:

• public revenue;

• domestic businesses;

• infrastructure;

• jobs;

• industrial capabilities;

• processing capacity;

• technological expertise.

In February 2026, EITI-DRC published fiscal modelling of four major mining projects, examining factors including realised prices, reported volumes and grades, operating costs and fiscal provisions that can affect public revenue.

This illustrates an important principle:

Resource governance requires continuous measurement.

Governments need systems capable of asking:

• How much was produced?

• At what grade?

• At what price?

• What was exported?

• What costs were reported?

• What taxes were due?

• What royalties were paid?

• What exemptions applied?

• What revenue should the state have received?

Without reliable data, fiscal policy becomes much harder.

Oil Creates a Different Version of the Same Problem

Africa's petroleum economies illustrate another dimension of resource governance.

Oil-producing countries may generate enormous export revenues without developing sufficiently diversified domestic economies.

The danger is dependence.

When oil prices rise:

government revenues increase → spending expands → expectations rise

When oil prices fall:

revenues decline → budgets tighten → debt pressures increase → social tensions can rise

This is why oil wealth should ideally be converted into productive assets rather than consumed entirely.

A barrel of oil extracted today is finite.

A well-designed infrastructure network, university system, industrial cluster or sovereign investment fund can generate value for decades.

The objective should therefore be:

Convert finite natural wealth into durable productive wealth.

Sovereign Wealth Funds Can Help — If Governed Well

Some resource-rich countries establish sovereign wealth funds.

The principle is straightforward.

Instead of spending all resource revenues immediately, the state saves and invests part of the income.

This can help:

• smooth government spending;

• protect budgets from commodity-price volatility;

• save for future generations;

• invest internationally;

• finance long-term national priorities.

But a sovereign wealth fund is not automatically a solution.

It requires:

• transparent rules;

• independent oversight;

• professional investment management;

• clear withdrawal rules;

• public reporting;

• parliamentary scrutiny;

• strong auditing.

Otherwise, the fund itself can become another channel for political discretion.

The institution matters more than the name.

Local Communities Ask a Different Question

National governments may celebrate resource projects.

Investors may celebrate them.

Markets may celebrate them.

But communities living near mines, oil fields, pipelines or other extraction sites may ask:

What do we receive?

They may experience:

• land acquisition;

• displacement;

• pollution;

• water pressure;

• road congestion;

• environmental damage;

• loss of agricultural land;

• disruption of traditional livelihoods.

Meanwhile, the national economy may report billions of dollars in exports.

This creates a crucial distinction:

National resource wealth does not automatically equal local prosperity.

A serious resource policy therefore needs mechanisms for:

• community consultation;

• compensation;

• environmental protection;

• local employment;

• community development;

• grievance mechanisms;

• revenue-sharing where appropriate.

The African Mining Vision explicitly places local development, community benefits and environmental protection within its conception of responsible mining.

Artisanal Mining Cannot Simply Be Ignored

Millions of Africans participate directly or indirectly in artisanal and small-scale mining.

It can provide livelihoods where formal employment opportunities are limited.

But informal mining can also involve:

• dangerous working conditions;

• environmental damage;

• child labour risks;

• weak tax collection;

• smuggling;

• conflict financing in certain contexts.

The answer cannot always be simply to eliminate artisanal miners.

Formalisation can potentially provide:

• safer equipment;

• legal licences;

• access to finance;

• technical assistance;

• better market access;

• environmental standards;

• taxation;

• traceability.

The African Mining Vision explicitly recognises the potential of artisanal and small-scale mining to support entrepreneurship and rural development when properly integrated into wider value chains.

Foreign Investment Is Not the Enemy

A serious resource strategy should avoid a simplistic choice between:

foreign companies

and

African ownership.

Africa needs capital.

It needs technology.

It needs engineering expertise.

It needs exploration capability.

It needs infrastructure.

It needs access to global markets.

Foreign investors can provide some of these.

The issue is therefore not whether foreign investment should exist.

The more important questions are:

Under what conditions?

With what fiscal terms?

With what environmental standards?

With what local-content requirements?

With what technology transfer?

With what domestic supplier participation?

With what transparency?

With what infrastructure commitments?

With what obligations for rehabilitation?

With what mechanisms for public accountability?

A foreign company can be a partner in African industrialisation.

But a partnership works best when both sides possess meaningful negotiating capacity.

African Ownership Does Not Automatically Mean Public Benefit

There is another uncomfortable reality.

Replacing a foreign company with a state-owned company does not automatically solve the problem.

A state-owned enterprise can still suffer from:

• political appointments;

• poor management;

• procurement problems;

• financial losses;

• weak transparency;

• excessive borrowing;

• political interference.

The relevant distinction is therefore not:

foreign = bad

or

state-owned = good.

It is:

Who governs the enterprise?

How transparent is it?

Who audits it?

How efficiently does it operate?

Where do its revenues go?

Can citizens scrutinise its finances?

Does it create domestic capability?

Ownership matters.

But governance matters just as much.

Resource Nationalism Has Both Opportunities and Risks

As demand for critical minerals increases, some African governments may seek greater state participation, higher royalties, local processing requirements or export restrictions.

This is often described as resource nationalism.

Its underlying logic can be understandable:

If a resource is strategically important, should the country not capture more of its value?

But aggressive policy changes can also create risks.

Investors may respond by:

• delaying projects;

• redirecting capital;

• challenging contracts;

• demanding higher risk premiums;

• reducing exploration.

The challenge is to design policies that increase national value capture without destroying the investment conditions required to develop the resource.

This requires predictable rules rather than constant policy reversals.

Local Content Is Where Resource Extraction Can Become Industrialisation

Consider a mine that spends $500 million a year.

Where does that money go?

If most equipment, engineering, consulting, transportation and services are imported, the domestic economic multiplier may be relatively limited.

But imagine that local firms supply:

• machinery maintenance;

• uniforms;

• construction;

• catering;

• transportation;

• software;

• engineering;

• laboratory services;

• environmental monitoring;

• security technology;

• financial services;

• equipment components.

Now the mine becomes an industrial customer.

This is why local-content policy matters.

The objective should not simply be:

"Employ more local workers."

It should also be:

"Build local companies capable of supplying increasingly sophisticated goods and services."

That creates capabilities that can survive after the mine closes.

Infrastructure Can Be the Bridge Between Resources and Industrialisation

A mine requires infrastructure.

So does a factory.

So does agriculture.

So does trade.

So does a city.

This creates an opportunity.

Instead of constructing infrastructure exclusively for one extraction project, governments can ask:

Can this infrastructure become part of a wider economic corridor?

A railway serving a mine could also serve:

• agricultural producers;

• manufacturers;

• exporters;

• regional traders.

A port developed for minerals could also support:

• containers;

• agricultural exports;

• manufacturing;

• regional commerce.

Electricity infrastructure built for processing could support surrounding industries.

This is the difference between:

extractive infrastructure

and

development infrastructure.

The second creates broader economic spillovers.

Africa's Resource Strategy Must Include Energy

There is a contradiction at the heart of mineral industrialisation.

Processing minerals requires energy.

Manufacturing requires energy.

Mining itself requires energy.

Yet many African countries continue to face electricity shortages or high energy costs.

This creates a strategic question:

How can Africa process energy-intensive minerals competitively without reliable and affordable power?

The answer will differ by region.

Potential solutions include:

• hydroelectricity;

• solar;

• wind;

• natural gas;

• geothermal;

• nuclear in countries where appropriate;

• regional power pools;

• battery storage;

• transmission networks.

The resource strategy cannot therefore be separated from the energy strategy.

The Environmental Question Cannot Be an Afterthought

Natural resources are finite.

Extraction changes landscapes.

Mining can affect:

• water;

• soil;

• biodiversity;

• forests;

• agriculture;

• communities.

Oil and gas extraction can produce additional environmental risks.

Therefore, resource wealth should not be measured only in export dollars.

A more complete calculation is:

economic benefit

minus

environmental cost

minus

social cost

equals

net development benefit.

This does not mean rejecting extraction.

It means recognising its full economic cost.

The Resource-to-Technology Connection Is Becoming More Important

The traditional resource chain was:

Africa → raw material → foreign processing → foreign manufacturing → finished product

The emerging strategic question is whether some African economies can build:

Africa → resource → processing → components → manufacturing → technology

Consider critical minerals.

The long-term opportunity may not be simply exporting more cobalt, copper, lithium or graphite.

It could involve building capabilities in:

• batteries;

• electrical equipment;

• renewable-energy components;

• grid technologies;

• electronics;

• industrial machinery;

• recycling;

• energy storage.

Not every country can do everything.

But regional specialisation could allow multiple countries to participate.

Africa Should Think in Value Chains, Not Individual Mines

A mine is a project.

A value chain is an economic system.

Suppose one country produces copper.

Another has cheap renewable electricity.

Another has engineering expertise.

Another has a major port.

Another has a large manufacturing market.

Another has financial services.

Instead of competing individually, they could potentially build a regional production network.

This is where AfCFTA becomes strategically important.

The continent's future resource strategy could therefore be:

resource + infrastructure + energy + finance + technology + regional market = industrial value chain

rather than:

resource + foreign investor = export.

The Biggest Resource Africa May Have Is Not Underground

There is another resource that is often overlooked.

Human capital.

Geologists.

Engineers.

Scientists.

Technicians.

Data analysts.

Machine operators.

Entrepreneurs.

Financial specialists.

Environmental scientists.

Software developers.

Industrial designers.

The African Mining Vision explicitly connects resource development with human-resource development and skills formation.

Without these capabilities, Africa can possess the minerals while remaining dependent on foreign expertise.

That is why universities and technical institutions are part of resource policy.

A mining strategy without an education strategy is incomplete.

Resource Governance Is Also a Democracy Issue

Natural resources can fundamentally shape political power.

If governments control large resource revenues without strong oversight, citizens may become less economically important to the state.

Why?

Because governments can potentially finance substantial public expenditure from resource rents rather than from broad-based taxation.

This can weaken the traditional fiscal relationship:

citizens pay taxes → citizens demand accountability

Where resource revenues dominate, the relationship can become different:

government receives resource income → government distributes spending

That makes transparency especially important.

Citizens should be able to understand:

• what was extracted;

• who received the licence;

• who owns the company;

• what was paid;

• what the government received;

• where the revenue went.

EITI's work increasingly focuses on exactly these issues, including fiscal modelling, revenue forecasting, licensing transparency and oversight of extractive revenues.

Transparency Is Not Just an Anti-Corruption Tool

Transparency is often discussed primarily in terms of corruption.

But it has a broader economic purpose.

Reliable information helps governments:

• negotiate contracts;

• forecast revenues;

• plan budgets;

• monitor production;

• assess tax compliance;

• understand commodity dependence;

• evaluate investment decisions.

It also helps citizens understand whether resource wealth is being converted into public value.

The EITI reported that its participating countries had disclosed more than $3.3 trillion in tax revenues through open-format reporting across 780 fiscal years, illustrating the enormous scale of public-resource information involved.

Transparency therefore belongs at the centre of economic management.

Africa's Resource Question Is Ultimately a Value-Capture Question

Consider the complete chain:

Stage 1

Africa possesses the natural resource.

Stage 2

Exploration identifies it.

Stage 3

Capital develops the deposit.

Stage 4

Companies extract it.

Stage 5

The state collects taxes and royalties.

Stage 6

The resource is transported.

Stage 7

It is processed.

Stage 8

It becomes an industrial input.

Stage 9

It becomes a manufactured product.

Stage 10

The product enters global markets.

At each stage, economic value is created.

The central question is:

How much of that value does Africa capture?

That is more important than simply asking who owns the mine.

A New African Resource Bargain?

Africa could potentially negotiate a new type of resource partnership with global investors.

Not:

"Give us investment and take the resource."

And not necessarily:

"Foreign companies cannot participate."

But:

"Invest in our resource sector while helping build our productive capacity."

That could mean agreements involving:

• fair taxation;

• transparent contracts;

• local employment;

• supplier development;

• infrastructure;

• processing;

• skills;

• research;

• environmental rehabilitation;

• technology partnerships;

• community development;

• regional supply chains.

The objective would be to make extraction the beginning of economic development rather than the end of the value chain.

Five Questions Every Resource Contract Should Trigger

Before a major resource project is approved, policymakers and citizens should be able to ask:

1. What exactly is being extracted?

Not merely the headline commodity, but its grade, volume and economic characteristics.

2. What does the state receive?

Taxes, royalties, dividends, bonuses and other fiscal benefits.

3. What remains in the domestic economy?

Jobs, procurement, infrastructure, technology and local businesses.

4. What happens after extraction?

Does the country develop processing, manufacturing or other productive capabilities?

5. What happens when the resource declines?

Does the country have a diversified economy capable of replacing the resource revenues?

These questions shift the discussion from extraction to development.

What Would Resource Sovereignty Actually Mean?

Resource sovereignty should not necessarily mean national isolation.

It should not automatically mean banning foreign investment.

It should not mean that every mine must be state-owned.

It should not mean that every mineral must be processed domestically.

Instead, resource sovereignty could mean that African countries have sufficient:

• geological knowledge;

• legal capacity;

• negotiating capacity;

• fiscal expertise;

• technological capability;

• infrastructure;

• financial strength;

• institutional transparency;

• industrial policy;

• regional bargaining power

to determine how their resources contribute to national development.

That is a much more practical definition.

From Resource-Rich to Value-Rich

This may be the most important distinction.

Africa is already resource-rich.

The continent does not need another slogan about being resource-rich.

The strategic objective should be becoming value-rich.

That means moving from:

ore → export

toward:

ore → processing → manufacturing → technology → exports

From:

oil → crude exports

toward:

energy → refining → petrochemicals → industrial production

From:

agricultural commodity → raw export

toward:

commodity → processing → food manufacturing → regional markets

From:

mineral deposit → foreign project

toward:

mineral deposit → African industrial ecosystem

The African Union's commodities strategy explicitly frames this challenge as transforming Africa from a raw-material supplier through value addition, local content, diversification and integration into global value chains.

The Great Resource Question of the 21st Century

The global economy is entering a period in which minerals, energy, technology and industrial capacity are becoming increasingly interconnected.

Africa therefore has an extraordinary opportunity.

But opportunity is not the same as outcome.

A mineral deposit does not build a hospital.

Oil does not automatically build a university.

Gold does not automatically create manufacturing jobs.

Copper does not automatically produce electricity networks.

Lithium does not automatically create batteries.

Natural gas does not automatically create industrialisation.

Institutions convert resources into development.

That requires governments capable of negotiating intelligently.

It requires companies capable of investing productively.

It requires citizens capable of demanding transparency.

It requires universities capable of producing technical talent.

It requires financial institutions capable of funding African businesses.

It requires infrastructure capable of connecting production.

And it requires regional markets large enough to support industrial scale.

Africa Is Resource-Rich. The Question Is Whether It Can Become Value-Rich.

For generations, much of Africa's relationship with the global economy has followed a familiar pattern:

extract → export → import finished goods.

That model can generate foreign exchange and investment.

But by itself it does not necessarily produce structural transformation.

The African Union's own frameworks recognise this challenge. The African Mining Vision calls for resource extraction to be connected to industrialisation, local economic linkages, infrastructure, skills, environmental responsibility and broad-based development.

The opportunity is now changing.

Critical minerals are becoming strategically important.

Energy systems are changing.

Artificial intelligence is transforming geological exploration.

Manufacturing supply chains are being reconsidered.

Global powers are competing for access to resources and markets.

Africa's bargaining position could therefore become more important.

But the continent's greatest advantage will not simply be possessing minerals that other countries want.

It will be the ability to say:

We have the resource, but we also want the industry, the technology, the jobs, the infrastructure, the knowledge and the long-term economic value created around it.

That is the difference between being an exporter of resources and becoming a participant in the industries those resources make possible.

The question facing Africa is therefore not simply:

"Who owns Africa's natural resources?"

It is:

"Who controls the economic value created from Africa's natural resources?"

And perhaps the even bigger question is:

"Can Africa use its natural-resource wealth to build the productive economy that will eventually make resource dependence unnecessary?"

That is the real test.

Africa does not need to remain merely resource-rich.

It has the possibility of becoming industrial-rich, technology-rich, knowledge-rich and opportunity-rich.

But that transformation will depend on what happens between the moment a resource is discovered and the moment its economic value reaches an African household.

THE BIG PICTURE

Africa's Pressure Points — Where Do We Go Next?

We have now moved through a chain of interconnected pressures:

Political dissatisfaction
Democratic legitimacy
Accountability
Economic opportunity
Loss of trust
The social contract
State capacity
Economic continuity
Generational change
Youth employment
The middle class
Inequality

Natural-resource ownership and value capture

But there is another question underneath all of them:

If Africa has the resources, the people and the markets — why does industrialisation remain so difficult?

Next on Pressure Point:-

AFRICA'S INDUSTRIALISATION PROBLEM

Why Has the Continent Struggled to Turn Raw Materials Into Manufacturing Power?

The next investigation will examine factories, electricity, infrastructure, technology, finance, trade barriers, skills, industrial policy, AfCFTA and the global manufacturing system — and ask whether Africa can finally move from exporting what it has to manufacturing what the world needs.

By Jugo Ikeji-Uju. 

admin@ubuntusafa.com 

sappertekinc@gmail.com

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