Via Semafor, a look at Africa’s global share of EV metals and minerals:

The worldwide supply chain disruption caused by the global pandemic from 2020 through 2021 forced major organizations to rethink what they now realize was an overreliance on tried and tested systems. Until then African countries had not been prioritized as a supply chain option other than as raw material supplier and recipient end users. This is the “opportunity” that the UN’s Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) examines in a report this month called, The Potential of Africa to Capture Technology-Intensive Global Supply Chains.

As UNCTAD sees it, Africa could have a strong advantage in the energy, automotive, and electronics sectors because of “an abundant supply of raw materials” for those sectors (see chart). Key African countries like DR Congo, which dominates global cobalt supply, and South Africa, which leads globally in manganese, could help diversify and strengthen global supply chains “by offering a new regional market for businesses and industries.”

But all this only works with more equitable agreements between governments and investors — especially for critical minerals and metals — are used to develop domestic industries successfully and boost local firms capabilities to design and build inputs and other supply chain components.