commentary
Maximizing the Benefits of the Renewed Global Interest in Africa’s Strategic Minerals
Key insights from a peer-learning negotiation workshop.
· August 15, 2024
As Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), diaspora remittances, and other kinds of financial flows eclipse the volume of foreign aid to Africa, the nature of development financing must evolve. The Africa Program’s Investments work analyzes how public and private investment flows can better support Africa’s economic resilience. We aim to provide the knowledge base to reorient foreign aid and external financial flows to support Africa’s long-term aspirations for economic transformation.
Key insights from a peer-learning negotiation workshop.
China’s slowing growth will increasingly impact its economic relations with Africa. Policy directions within African countries and third parties such as the United States will greatly shape how these changes in the China-Africa relationship continue to unfold.
Ambitious U.S. rhetoric and commitment to African infrastructure requires follow-through. By taking a few concrete steps, the United States can make real progress on this worthy goal.
As calls for global financial architecture reform grow louder, activists risk overloading policymakers. They should instead propose a comprehensive viable reform plan for People and Planet.
Recommendations from a high-level roundtable on an African agenda for World Bank reform hosted by the Carnegie Africa Program and the African Climate Foundation.
Africa received an average of $35 billion per year for fossil fuel and clean energy projects over the past decade. That amount was enough to address the continent’s energy finance gap, but unequal distribution has left many countries behind.
It could mark a shift toward a more inclusive financial system for the climate- and debt-stressed Global South.
African policymakers should embrace a more pragmatic economic agenda that recognizes and capitalizes on Africa’s comparative edge: a greater abundance of land rather than low-cost labor.
Although the bank is no longer the top development financier in most parts of the world, it remains critical to global development.
While European governments are focused on Ukraine, they risk diverting aid to Europe at a time when Africa needs it most.
Instead of fixating on infrastructure, African countries should look to the experience of Latin American countries with similar resource endowments: a greater relative abundance of land than low-cost labor.
Three principles to guide the modernization of U.S. international development assistance to be more responsive to these global development challenges of the 21st century.