Can you start by telling us about your role in the implementation of the African Continental Free Trade Agreement and what this means for the growth of Africa in sustainable development?
Let me first start by acknowledging how important and what a game changer the African Continental Free Trade Agreement is. It’s a legal agreement that makes it predictable to do business with the African continent. Essentially, anybody in the world that wants to trade with the continent or invest in the continent gets predictable rules. Similarly, for any African that wants to invest in intra-African trade or do intra-African investments, it sets a predictable environment. We also have a dispute settlement mechanism. So as a legal agreement that is an enabler, this is quite important. What we need to do, as countries across Africa, is we need to have strategic interventions that give life to the agreement.
In my case, or in South Africa’s case, what we are doing is we are pursuing what we call an outward investment strategy. We are mobilizing South African investors onto the continent to invest, particularly in infrastructure and manufacturing, to build productive capacity so we can then begin to trade among ourselves. We are mindful that we are not trading because we don’t have adequate infrastructure. We are not trading with each other because we don’t have enough manufacturing capabilities. So the work that I do day-to-day and the strategy that South Africa pursues is to say, “Let’s partner with the rest of Africa and let’s build the capabilities to give life to the agreement.”
You have a wealth of experience in global policy. Are we seeing any shifts in policy for the development of Africa and prosperity across the continent?
Absolutely, we are, particularly linked to the whole climate change agenda and the fact that there’s now more of a pressing need for green industrialization, green industries, renewable energy sources, and the like. So, Africa has become a very important centerpiece of the conversation because the bulk of the resources, the minerals that are required for the green technologies, the majority of them are found on the African continent.
It’s important now that the voice of Africa gets heard. Similarly, when we talk about renewable energy sources, whether we are talking wind, solar, hydro, geothermal, et cetera, the majority of the resources would be found in Africa. Africa is pivotal. The shift is now to say, “What should be Africa’s response to this whole conversation about green industrialization and how do we use it to bring prosperity to the continent?”
What is your ultimate vision in terms of diversification, digitization, and decarbonization for the African continent?
The ultimate vision is for a continent that is not only a rule-taker when it comes to setting the agenda for the world’s prosperity and development, but a rule-maker. I’m mindful that some of the development trajectories and initiatives of the continent have to catch up with the fact that we must diversify very quickly, we must decarbonize very quickly, and we do need to digitize very quickly.
But one thing that gives me comfort is that one of our biggest resources is our people. So harnessing the talents of the African people in the diaspora on the continent, we will be able to leapfrog, and harnessing the mineral endowment that we have and channeling them correctly, we’ll be able to achieve the three D’s, as it were.
What conversations do you hope to be having at Mining Indaba this week and what is exciting about being here for you?
I’m looking forward to particularly two specific conversations, one happening later on today, which is the first day of the Indaba, the African ministers conversation around shaping the trajectory of Africa’s green industrialization and what that looks like, and particularly the outcomes of those.
I’m looking forward to how do we use those outcomes to the conversation in the G20 as an Africa collective because as you know, South Africa is the president of the G20 at the moment, and we’ll be having a G20 Summit. So we do want to have an African voice and perspective represented at the G20, and the mineral conversation and the green industrialization is one of them.
The second one is the conversation that’s happening on the fourth, which is a conversation among the South African ministers that will give a view of what South Africa’s own strategy around critical minerals is and the contents of that. So that’s exciting.
