Raw material exports keep Africa poor – AfDB president Adesina says 

In a post shared on Thursday via his official X (formerly Twitter) handle, Adesina stressed the urgent need for Africa to shift from being a supplier of unprocessed commodities to a producer of value-added goods.

“Africa must end the exports of its raw materials. The export of raw materials is the door to poverty. The export of value-added products is the highway to wealth. And Africa is tired of being poor,” he wrote.

According to data from the Office of US Trade Representative and other multilateral institutions, Africa accounts for less than 2% of global manufacturing.

Adesina has consistently advocated for policies that promote agro-industrialisation, energy expansion, and improved infrastructure as a foundation for transforming Africa’s economies.

Last week, Adesina criticised the disproportionate allocation of the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) Special Drawing Rights (SDRs), revealing that Africa received just $33 billion, only 4.5% of the $650 billion issued globally.

The AfDB president stressed that the distribution model of the SDRs failed to reflect the urgent financial needs of Africa, which bore some of the deepest economic scars from the pandemic, with limited fiscal capacity to implement a robust recovery plan.

To address this imbalance, Adesina disclosed that the AfDB, in partnership with the African Union, spearheaded efforts to rechannel unused SDRs from wealthier nations to African economies. Leveraging the AfDB’s AAA credit rating, a new framework co-developed with the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) has now been approved by the IMF Board.

Africa is endowed with vast natural resources ranging from crude oil, gold, and cobalt to agricultural commodities like cocoa, coffee, and cotton. However, these resources are largely exported in raw form to industrialized nations where they are processed into finished products. The finished products are then re-imported into Africa at significantly higher prices.

This trend has historically resulted in limited value capture within the continent, reduced employment opportunities in the manufacturing sector, and weak industrial growth.

Adesina’s remarks echo a long-standing argument among economists and development practitioners that Africa must industrialize and strengthen its value chains if it hopes to achieve sustainable economic growth and improve the standard of living for its people.