The green transition is being decided without Africa — even when it runs through Africa

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 criteria and timelines that make some futures investable and others unthinkable.

Africa provides the inputs. Others define the transition.

Standards are the new choke points

Consider standards. Environmental thresholds, traceability rules, sustainability benchmarks and “responsible sourcing” criteria are presented as technical necessities. Many are justified and important.

But they also function as instruments of control.

Standards determine which minerals qualify for green supply chains, which processing routes are acceptable and which timelines are feasible. They shape investment long before a government signs a contract.

Crucially, most of these standards are written outside Africa — in Brussels, Washington, Bejing etc or industry-led bodies where African participation is limited. Once adopted, they harden expectations and narrow choice.

By the time African policymakers react, compliance has replaced negotiation.

Finance fixes the future early

Finance amplifies this effect.

Green finance, blended finance and climate-aligned investment come with conditions that privilege speed, scale and certainty. Projects must be “bankable” quickly. Risk must be minimised early. Long-term offtake agreements are encouraged to reassure lenders.

These requirements appear neutral. They are not.

They lock in export-oriented models and make sequencing — local processing first, learning before scale — appear risky or unrealistic. Industrial ambition is deferred to a future that never quite arrives.

The future is stabilised financially before it is debated politically.

Geopolitics without African leverage

Geopolitics compounds the problem.

The United States structures its green transition through industrial subsidies and allied supply chains. The European Union uses regulatory power and market access to shape behaviour. China consolidates control over midstream processing and manufacturing.

Each approach differs. The outcome converges.

Africa is integrated as a supplier, not as a co-author of the transition. Partnerships are offered, but on terms already defined. Negotiation occurs within narrow bounds.

The green transition may run through Africa — but it is not being negotiated there.

The outward reach of green futures

This dynamic reflects what I call the outward reach of green futures.

Expectations about the transition — what technologies will dominate, which supply chains are viable, how fast change must occur — are generated in a handful of global centres. They then radiate outward through standards, finance and contracts.

Africa encounters these futures as faits accomplis.

Once embedded in legal and financial instruments, they are difficult to contest. National strategies, however ambitious, struggle to realign trajectories already stabilised elsewhere.

Why Africa-led strategies struggle

This helps explain why Africa-led initiatives repeatedly underperform.

Continental visions promise value addition and industrialisation. National governments endorse them. Yet implementation bends toward rapid extraction and export.

The problem is not weak ideas or poor coordination. It is that the decisive moments occur upstream, outside the reach of domestic policy. By the time strategies are operationalised, the future has already been shaped.

Authority lagging behind value is a structural disadvantage.

Reclaiming a seat at the table

The solution is not withdrawal from global markets, nor rejection of standards or finance. It is recognition.

Africa cannot influence outcomes if it only engages downstream — after rules are written and deals structured. Influence requires presence where futures are defined: in standard-setting bodies, financing frameworks, technology roadmaps and trade regimes.

It also requires internal discipline — resisting premature commitments that foreclose options and aligning national decisions with long-term continental ambitions.

The transition Africa deserves

The green transition will not be judged by how fast minerals move, but by who captures value and who shapes outcomes.

As long as Africa’s role is confined to supplying inputs, the transition will reproduce old hierarchies under a new label.

A transition that runs through Africa but is decided elsewhere is not a just transition. It is a familiar one.

If Africa is to benefit meaningfully, it must move from being a corridor for value chains to being a co-author of the future they serve.