🔅 Africa Strikes Gold: The Lithium Revolution
Plus: Malawi’s deadliest cholera outbreak, Uganda’s cars must all have bins, Microsoft to formalize DRC's mining industry, Merkel awarded the UNESCO Peace Prize in Ivory Coast, And much more... ☕
Photo of the day: Yaounde, Cameroon
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Brexit’s Bill? £29bn and Counting: The Bank of England’s Jonathan Haskel recently dropped the mic with a hefty number: Brexit has cost the UK economy £29bn, or £1,000 per household. Haskel explains that pre-Brexit, the UK had a booming investment period from 2012-2016, but since then, productivity has taken a hit, and the country has seen a “productivity penalty” of 1.3% of its GDP. Meanwhile, nearly 9 million Brits are economically inactive, and the government’s considering plans to coax retired middle-aged workers back into jobs to try and revive the economy.
*Data accurate as of the close of markets across the continent
ECONOMY
Africa Strikes Gold: The Lithium Revolution
Lithium is hot right now.
As electric vehicles (EVs) become all the rage, demand for the battery material is soaring and prices more than doubled last year alone. African countries are determined to keep more of the profits from this lithium boom.
What's the plan?
Lithium-rich nations like Zimbabwe and Namibia want to develop processing and refining industries to capture more of the profits of the lithium demand.
This means not just mining the material, but processing it before export.
"We are saying to ourselves, if you have got the minerals that everybody wants now, you need to make sure that at least you probably mine those minerals differently and not in the usual manner," said Namibia's mines minister Tom Alweendo.
What does this mean for Africa?
It means jobs and new businesses, as well as more tax revenue.
The continent's lithium production is set to increase this decade. From 40,000 tonnes this year, it’s expected to produce 497,000 tonnes in 2030.
When Zimbabwe imposed a ban on raw lithium exports to stop smuggling, it attracted investors keen to develop the sector.
The global transition away from fossil fuels has given the industry a sense of urgency - and investors are reconsidering projects they may have previously overlooked.
Len Kolff, the interim CEO at Atlantic Lithium, said, "these are really unique times we are living in". His company is set to be the first lithium producer in Ghana and has signed a deal to get 50% of the lithium produced. Everybody’s approaching them, from the whole who's who on the Chinese list, to the Western OEMs.
Could this actually work?
Mining has often been linked to the exploitation of workers or environmental degradation by foreign powers.
And there are still plenty of obstacles, notably inadequate electricity supply.
But African countries are determined to keep more of the value of their resources and this lithium revolution could be part of their story.
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OTHER HEADLINES
Across the Continent
🎬 Black Panther’s Biggest Villain? French Soldiers? | France’s defence minister has called out Marvel’s Black Panther for “false and misleading” depictions of French soldiers. The movie, set in a fictional African nation, shows a group of villainous mercenaries in uniforms that look suspiciously similar to those of French troops deployed in the Sahel region. Minister Sebastien Lecornu said he “strongly condemned” the similarity of the fictional group with French forces. The issue is particularly sensitive since France has recently announced it is withdrawing troops from Burkina Faso, and tensions have grown between Mali, its African neighbours, and Western nations.
🇨🇮 Ivory Coast’s Cocoa Crisis: A Recipe for Default | Ivory Coast’s cocoa exporters are about to miss the mark when it comes to meeting their contractual obligations. The world’s top cocoa producer is short on beans, leaving exporters with a 150,000-tonne gap to fill before they can honour their contracts with foreign buyers. And according to several sources at a crisis meeting with the cocoa regulator last Friday, the situation is getting worse. Cocoa supplies have been tight all season, with only 34,000 tonnes arriving at main ports during the week of Feb. 12, compared to 66,000 tonnes during the same period last season. The domestic traders association, GNI, is having a hard time buying beans, while the Fairtrade market- controlled by multinationals who pay a higher price to farmers but make it difficult for domestic exporters to compete- is taking up a lot of the available cocoa.
🇦🇴🇿🇲🇨🇩 A Corridor to Connect Angola, Zambia, and DRC | Angola, Zambia, and the Democratic Republic of Congo have come together to create a new agency to develop a trade corridor from the Atlantic Ocean port of Lobito. This corridor has the potential to revolutionise the shipping of resources from the region’s mines. Think of it as the highway for the metals used to make electric cars and wind turbines—more on this in this Bloomberg report.
🇿🇦 South African Rapper AKA Shot Dead | The South African rapper, whose real name was Kiernan Forbes, was shot dead in Durban on Monday night. The 35-year-old rapper and his friend, entrepreneur Tebello “Tibz” Motsoane, were on their way to a nightclub for Forbes’ birthday celebration when they were gunned down. It’s unclear whether it was a hit, but police aren’t ruling out the possibility. Forbes was celebrated internationally, with several nominations for a BET Award in the US and an MTV Europe Music Award. His parents paid tribute to him on social media, saying, “To us, Kiernan Jarryd Forbes was a son, brother, grandson, nephew, cousin and friend, most importantly father to his beloved daughter Kairo.” Forbes’ upcoming album, Mass Country, is still set for release this month. South Africa has one of the highest murder rates in the world, with an estimated 30 people murdered with guns every day.
FOOD FOR THOUGHT
Proverb of the Day
“One should punish a child the first time he comes home with a stolen egg. Otherwise, the day he returns home with a stolen ox, it will be too late.”
— Ethiopian Proverb.