United Nations - The Potential of Africa to Capture Technology-Intensive Global Supply Chains

The Economic Development in Africa Report 2023 examines the potential for African countries to capture strategic business value and position themselves more strategically in key global supply chains, particularly in technology-intensive industries such as automotive, electronics, renewable energy, and medical devices. The report highlights the economic, political, trade, investment, social, and environmental factors that can help African countries position themselves as an attractive destination for supply chain diversification and resilience. For example, the report notes that Africa has an abundance of specialized materials that are in high demand for technology-intensive industries, such as cobalt, lithium, and rare earth metals. It also analyzes the region's potential for higher value capture in global and regional supply chains, including research and product design, components manufacturing, assembly or product integration, distribution, marketing and sales, consumption and buyers, and related services. The report concludes with case studies on the potential of African countries to integrate such supply chains and leverage growth and social development opportunities under improved contracts and local content requirement policies. Overall, the report suggests that Africa has significant potential to become a major player in high-tech industries and that relocating supply chains to Africa could benefit both the environment and supply chain diversification.