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Paper short abstract

This paper explores both the challenges and opportunities for industrial diversification in Africa under the current conjuncture with a focus on the possibilities of the AfCFTA and the impact of China and the BRICS. It explores vectors of possibility and constraint in the emerging (dis)order.

Paper long abstract

The current era of hyper-nationalism, populism and crisis has many regressive dimensions to it, including destructive tariffication which could be consider a form of “demolition geoeconomics” in that it undermines developing countries’ economies and the current international trading order. However, the current conjuncture also opens up possibilities to mitigate, if not escape from, underdevelopment. For example, as a result of the gridlock in the WTO Indonesia has been able to implement a ban on export of raw nickel, resulting in much greater value capture domestically. “Critical minerals” are increasingly in demand globally and harvesting rents from resource extraction and processing opens up possibilities for greater industrial diversification, not just from moving up the value chain, but generating resources to create new ones, which may be more nationally or regionally-focussed in the first instance. In Africa the implementation of the Continental Free Trade Agreement offers a potentially conducive environment for this reorientation. This paper explores both the challenges and opportunities for industrial diversification in Africa under the current conjuncture with a focus on the possibilities of the AfCFTA and the impact of China and the BRICS in particular. It explores vectors of possibility and constraint in the emerging international (dis)order and the possibilities of moving from African agency to power in industrial development.