- Africa’s Green Transition Must Serve Development, Not Just Decarbonisation
Africa risks entering the global green economy on terms largely designed elsewhere unless governments reshape the transition around the continent’s own energy needs, industrial ambitions and resource endowment, Prof Fatima Denton, Director of the United Nations University Institute for Natural Resources in Africa, has warned.
Speaking in Accra at the 8th Kwapong Lecture Series, Prof Denton argued that Africa cannot afford to treat the green transition simply as a technological shift from fossil fuels to renewable energy. Instead, she said, the continent needs a long-term development strategy capable of combining energy security, industrialisation, employment creation and environmental sustainability.
“We need a narrative that recognises the importance of Africa’s resources to the global economy,” she said, challenging African policymakers to resist adopting transition frameworks that do not sufficiently reflect the continent’s different economic starting point.
The warning goes to the heart of Africa’s increasingly complicated position in the global climate debate. While advanced economies and international institutions push towards net-zero emissions, roughly 600 million Africans still lack access to electricity, leaving governments to confront the difficult task of expanding modern energy access while simultaneously reducing future carbon intensity.
That makes Africa’s transition fundamentally different from that of richer economies. Countries with deep capital markets, established infrastructure and near-universal electricity access can frame decarbonisation largely as a process of replacing existing energy systems, while many African countries are still trying to build those systems in the first place.
For Prof Denton, climate policy therefore cannot be separated from development policy. The real objective should not simply be lowering emissions, but building an economy in which access to energy, productive capacity and employment expand alongside environmental sustainability.
That distinction is particularly important because Africa has historically supplied the raw materials underpinning global industrialisation while capturing relatively little value further down the production chain. The green transition risks reproducing the same pattern if African countries remain primarily exporters of lithium, cobalt, copper, manganese, bauxite and other strategic minerals while importing the technologies manufactured from them.
The opportunity is therefore larger than extracting minerals required for batteries, electric vehicles and renewable-energy systems. African governments need to use those resources to build domestic processing, manufacturing, technology capabilities and skilled employment.
Prof Denton questioned the assumption that countries can simply leapfrog traditional stages of development by adopting new technologies. “Leapfrogging is good, but do we have the space to land comfortably?” she asked.
The question captures the difference between adopting technology and transforming an economy. Solar panels, electric vehicles, green hydrogen and digital systems may support development, but they do not automatically generate domestic industrial capacity, local ownership or high-productivity employment.
Without deeper institutional and economic foundations, Africa could become a large consumer market for imported green technologies while remaining dependent on exporting the raw materials required to manufacture them. Prof Denton therefore stressed the importance of strong institutions, sound economic systems and robust social foundations.
The contradiction is equally visible in the global debate over fossil fuels. Industrialised economies continue to consume and produce substantial quantities of oil and gas even as developing countries face pressure to accelerate decarbonisation.
For African governments, the choice is consequently more complex than a simple contest between fossil fuels and renewables. Countries such as Mozambique, which Prof Denton cited, possess gas resources capable of generating export earnings and supporting domestic energy supply, yet long-term dependence on hydrocarbons carries climate and stranded-asset risks.
The challenge is therefore to determine how existing resources can support development without locking economies into high-carbon structures that may become increasingly difficult to finance or commercialise.
That requires moving beyond simplistic labels of “green” and “brown”. Prof Denton warned that extraction of critical minerals can itself carry significant environmental and social costs, while green hydrogen could place pressure on scarce water resources and deep-seabed mining raises concerns about fragile marine ecosystems.
The implication is important: a technology should not automatically be considered sustainable simply because it helps reduce emissions elsewhere.
Prof Denton also raised a broader question of economic power. Climate finance, carbon markets, critical minerals and green technologies are governed by rules, standards and financing structures that determine who captures value and who bears the cost.
“Who defines what constitutes a transition? Whose terms are being used?” she asked. “Who decides what is green or what makes a mineral critical?”
For African governments, these are practical economic questions. If climate finance arrives primarily as expensive debt, the transition could worsen fiscal vulnerability, while poorly structured carbon markets could leave countries surrendering environmental assets without capturing a proportionate share of the value created.
The same applies to critical minerals. If Africa continues exporting unprocessed materials while importing batteries, vehicles, machinery and other finished technologies, the continent risks remaining at the lowest-value end of the emerging green industrial economy.
Prof Denton’s reference to China offers a useful strategic lesson. China built manufacturing capability, infrastructure, supply chains and technological expertise around its economic opportunities rather than relying solely on raw-material exports.
Africa faces a similar challenge under very different financial and geopolitical conditions. Its mineral wealth, renewable-energy potential, agricultural resources and growing consumer markets could provide the basis for a new industrial strategy, but only if governments deliberately invest in power systems, transport, technical education, research, finance and productive infrastructure.
The African Continental Free Trade Area could strengthen that effort by creating larger regional markets for goods manufactured within Africa. Larger markets could help justify investments in processing and manufacturing that individual national economies may struggle to sustain alone.
But governments will need to resist measuring progress simply through foreign-investment announcements or rising mineral exports. The more important indicators are how many jobs are created, how much value remains in African economies and whether domestic companies develop the capacity to participate competitively in new global supply chains.
Prof Denton ultimately argues that the transition requires participation beyond governments and international institutions. “We must be intentional,” she said, calling for a whole-of-society approach involving policymakers, investors, universities, businesses and communities.
Handled poorly, the green transition could produce a new form of resource dependence in which African countries supply minerals, land and energy while others capture the technology, finance and manufacturing profits. Handled strategically, it could provide the platform for a new phase of industrialisation.
The central issue is therefore not whether Africa should participate in the global green transition.
It is whether the continent will remain primarily a supplier of raw materials and consumer of imported technologies, or use the transition to build productive capacity, industrial power and greater control over the value generated from its own resources.
