The Mettaboy Report

    Africa’s resource curse is usually blamed on volatility. Commodity prices swing. Demand rises and falls. Markets are unpredictable. Governments, we are told, struggle to plan in the face of uncertainty. This diagnosis is comforting. It is also wrong. Africa’s deeper problem is not uncertainty, but certainty arriving too early —long before societies have learned enough, debated enough, or chosen deliberately enough. What undermines development is not volatility, but the premature closure of options. This is the real resource curse.   When uncertainty disappears too fast In today’s global economy, uncertainty is treated as a problem to be eliminated as quickly as possible. Investors want clarity. Financiers want predictability. Policymakers are told to “de-risk” projects. For African resource economies, this de-risking often happens at the very start—through long-term contracts, fixed standards, financing conditions and infrastructure commitments that lock...

Africa sits at the centre of the global green transition. Lithium, cobalt, graphite, manganese and rare earths — the raw materials of decarbonisation — are disproportionately sourced from the continent. No energy transition can proceed without Africa. And yet, the transition is largely being decided elsewhere. This is the central paradox of the moment: value chains run through Africa, but authority does not . When value chains expand but power does not The green transition is often described as a technological shift. In reality, it is a political-economic reordering of value chains. These chains now stretch across continents, linking mines in Africa to refineries, factories, standards bodies, financiers and regulators elsewhere. But as these chains expand outward, decision-making authority travels in the opposite direction. The location of extraction does not determine the location of power. What matters is who sets the rules — the standards, financing terms, eligibility cr...

  Across Africa, the language of transformation is everywhere. Governments promise industrialisation, value addition, green growth and economic sovereignty. Strategies are launched. Roadmaps are unveiled. The rhetoric is ambitious and often sincere. Yet the actions tell a different story. What dominates in practice is not transformation, but acceleration : faster licensing, quicker approvals, rapid deal-making, and early monetisation of resources. Speed replaces sequencing. Momentum substitutes for commitment. This is not hypocrisy. It is politics.   Acceleration as a political shortcut For many African elites, acceleration has become the default mode of governance. It delivers immediate revenues, visible activity and short-term stability. It satisfies investors, reassures partners and finances political coalitions. Transformation, by contrast, is slow. It requires delaying rents, disciplining elites, coordinating institutions and absorbing social and political...

  Africa does not lack continental visions. From the Africa Mining Vision to the Africa Green Minerals Strategy, the continent has produced some of the most sophisticated development frameworks in the global South. These strategies diagnose the right problems: dependence on raw exports, weak linkages to industry, and the need to align resources with long-term transformation. Yet, again and again, they stall where it matters most: at the national level. This failure is often blamed on limited capacity, weak institutions or poor coordination. These explanations are convenient — and largely misleading. The real problem lies elsewhere: Africa-led visions fail not because they are poorly designed, but because national futures are closed before they can be implemented . Continental ambition, national closure At the continental level, strategies like the AMV and AGMS expand the horizon of what is possible. They imagine mineral-led development that includes local processing, skil...