In a powerful keynote address at the BPI Iconic Awards in Johannesburg, South Africa, former African Development Bank (AfDB) Group President Dr. Akinwumi Adesina delivered a clear message to the continent’s leaders: Africa must stop exporting raw materials and start building globally competitive industries while investing heavily in technology, particularly artificial intelligence and related fields so that the continent becomes a producer and innovator, not merely a consumer.
Speaking on the theme “Africa’s Next Leap: Visionary and Ethical Leadership for an Integrated and Prosperous Africa in the Global Economy,” Adesina argued that Africa’s youthful population, vast natural resources, and expanding markets represent extraordinary advantages. Realising them, however, requires deliberate choices: industrialisation, technological capability, continental integration, and ethical leadership.
Adesina’s central economic diagnosis is familiar yet urgent. For decades, much of Africa has remained locked in the lower rungs of global value chains including extracting and exporting unprocessed commodities while importing finished goods. This model, he stressed, limits job creation, skill development, and wealth retention.
“Africa must move further along resource value chains from extraction to processing, refining, manufacturing, research and innovation rather than remain primarily a supplier of raw materials,” he said. Mining can be the beginning, but processing creates skills, refining builds technological capabilities, manufacturing develops industrial ecosystems, and research generates intellectual property.
He pointed to Nigeria’s $20 billion Dangote Refinery as proof of what African capital and entrepreneurship can achieve at global scale. The project, he noted, demonstrates that the continent can build industrial assets capable of competing internationally. Adesina called for similar ambition across strategic sectors: automobiles and electric vehicles, batteries and energy storage, steel, machinery, pharmaceuticals, medical technology, food processing, software, and artificial intelligence.
On technology, Adesina was equally direct. The global race in artificial intelligence, semiconductors, robotics, advanced computing, biotechnology, cybersecurity, and data science is already under way. Africa cannot afford to sit on the sidelines training people only to use tools developed elsewhere.
“Africa must not simply adopt the technologies of the future; we must help build them,” he declared. “Our ambition must go beyond teaching people how to use AI. We must prepare people to build it.”
This requires serious investment in universities, research laboratories, computing infrastructure, and industrial ecosystems. Governments, universities, and vocational institutions must equip young Africans with the skills to innovate, create products, and compete globally—not merely to fill existing jobs. Education, he argued, must achieve more than employability; it must foster creators and problem-solvers.
Africa’s critical minerals position the continent as a potential supplier to the technology industries of the future. Adesina insisted that African countries should also capture higher-value segments of those industries rather than remaining upstream suppliers.
Adesina repeatedly emphasised that Africa’s greatest asset is its people. With roughly 60 percent of the population under 25 and projections that one in four people globally will be African by 2050, the demographic dividend is real—but only if matched by investment in education, skills, health, and opportunities for entrepreneurship.
Continental integration through the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) must go beyond tariff reductions. Adesina described it as a potential industrial platform that can connect markets, attract investment, enable complementary production networks, and give African firms the scale needed to compete internationally. Success should be measured by the products and companies Africa creates, the value it retains, and the competitiveness it achieves in global markets.
Industrialisation and technological ambition will falter without ethical leadership and strong institutions. Adesina stressed that public power and resources must serve the public interest. Transparency, accountability, and due process must guide decisions on public finances, infrastructure, mining agreements, and strategic partnerships.
“The national interest must stand above all other interests,” he said. Leaders should evaluate every major decision by whether it serves the nation, expands opportunities, and creates lasting value for future generations.
Adesina’s message arrives at a pivotal moment. Global supply chains are shifting, the AI and clean-energy transitions are accelerating, and Africa’s demographic weight is growing. Countries that successfully industrialise, build technological capacity, and integrate their markets stand to capture significant economic gains. Those that remain commodity exporters risk falling further behind.
The path forward is not mysterious. It requires sustained investment in people and infrastructure, policies that encourage value addition and private-sector industrial champions, deeper implementation of the AfCFTA as an industrial strategy, and leadership that prioritises long-term national interest over short-term gains.
Africa has the people, the resources, and the markets. As Adesina put it, the continent’s greatest strength is not simply what it possesses, but what it can create from what it possesses. The next leap depends on leaders choosing to build industries, master technology, and govern with integrity. The opportunity is clear. The responsibility now rests with those in power to seize it.
