Africa is endowed with vast energy resources – fossil fuels, but also solar, wind, hydro, and geothermal – and yet energy supply remains limited: Around 600 million people on the continent lack reliable access to electricity. This energy gap constrains economic growth and industrial potential, particularly in rural areas where agriculture remains the dominant sector in the economy. As African economies grow and urbanise, the demand for energy-intensive industries and infrastructure is rising. Strategic investments in sustainable industrialisation can create a virtuous cycle that expands energy access and drives productivity, which in turn can attract more investment.

Market opportunities already exist. Globally, the combined market value of six key clean energy technologies – solar photovoltaics (PV), wind, batteries, electric vehicles (EVs), heat pumps and electrolysers – has more than tripled from less than USD 200 billion in 2015 to more than USD 700 billion in 2023. This growth has rippled through the supply chain, leading to growth in markets for refined critical minerals – notably copper, lithium, nickel, cobalt, graphite, and rare earth elements – the combined market value of which exceeded USD 230 billion in 2024. Nascent markets for low-emissions materials and chemicals like steel, aluminium and ammonia could see steep growth rates in the future, depending on how quickly related technologies and supply chains develop over the coming years.

The economic rewards associated with these supply chains are – as yet – distributed very unevenly between countries. Africa as a whole currently captures less than 1% of the value generated from the manufacturing of clean energy technologies and their components. This is despite supplying large shares of the global demand for key unprocessed critical minerals – around 75% of global manganese, 70% of cobalt, nearly 20% of the world’s copper – that are essential inputs to their production. African countries have the potential to change this, tapping into opportunities that can enable economic growth and job creation, as well as supporting domestic efforts to expand access to affordable energy, digitalise, and diversify their economies. This report explores three key elements of these opportunities on the African continent: critical minerals beneficiation; production of low-emissions, energy-intensive commodities; and clean energy technology manufacturing.

Africa is already a major supplier to the global market for many minerals such as cobalt, manganese, bauxite and platinum‐group metals, but also holds substantial untapped resources such as graphite and lithium. As global demand for critical minerals rises, so will their potential to contribute to the economic growth of African resource holders. Production of mineral resources is already a vital source of income for Africa, representing around 8% of government revenues in resource-rich African countries. The potential economic contribution of mineral production can be increased by moving up the value chain towards processing, smelting and refining.

There are opportunities for mineral beneficiation across the continent. For example, East African countries could develop spherical graphite for battery anodes, while South Africa and Gabon have the potential to expand production of high-purity manganese sulphate, a material poised for high demand. Morocco could scale up its output of purified phosphoric acid, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Zambia hold substantial cobalt and copper resources that provide a strong foundation for producing processed materials. Tapping into the associated economic opportunities relies on emerging and developing economies succeeding in overcoming barriers to leverage their existing opportunities for clean industrialisation on the one hand. The High Potential Case in this report shows how this would increase the market value for minerals in Africa by nearly three-quarters compared with today’s levels to USD 120 billion by 2040. For comparison, total exports of all goods from African countries were worth around USD 680 billion combined in 2024.

Several countries in Africa are endowed with low-cost renewable electricity generation potential – and therefore potential to produce electrolytic hydrogen – alongside mineral deposits. Combining the two leads to a potentially competitive proposition for low-emissions, energy-intensive commodity exports, as other countries that are seeking to decarbonise their industries face higher costs for these commodities. In the High Potential Case, low-emissions iron exports to Europe and countries in Asia would be worth more than four times the value of the same tonnage of iron ore exports at today’s prices. The markets for these commodities are deep – South Africa alone currently exports around USD 6 billion worth of iron ore per year; global exports are worth around USD 150 billion – which can attract investment and financing for the requisite infrastructure, creating positive spillovers for other areas of development, such as providing energy access.

Low-cost renewable electricity and electrolytic hydrogen can also find an outlet in ammonia production, which is the precursor to all mineral nitrogen fertilisers today, and has significant additional opportunities in new energy applications, including in the shipping and power generation sectors. In the High Potential Case, a surge in ammonia production from around 11 Mt today to 25 Mt in 2035 and 40 Mt in 2050 would enable the African continent to eliminate all ammonia imports for fertiliser production by mid-century. This is a very significant potential knock-on effect for a continent that today derives nearly one-fifth of its GDP from agriculture, despite having some of the lowest rates of agricultural productivity in the world.

There are also opportunities in the manufacturing of clean energy technologies themselves. Several countries, particularly in North Africa, have the potential to establish a foothold in the EV and battery manufacturing industries, building on their existing automotive industrial base. In the High Potential Case, Africa’s EV production would rise from virtually nil today to nearly 4 million units in 2035 and then on to 5 million in 2050. By mid-century, the continent would become a net exporter of EVs, supplying a domestic market as well as other countries – mostly in the European Union. The competitiveness of this EV export capacity could be bolstered by an integrated battery supply chain, making producers progressively less reliant on component imports.

Africa’s mineral resource endowments, while an important asset, do not constitute a guarantee that opportunities to move up the value chain will be realised. Strong market signals – domestically and in potential export markets – for clean energy technologies will be foundational. However, other factors that presently deter investment in emerging economies also require strategic consideration, including political and currency risks, a lack of skilled workers, poor electricity and transport infrastructure and unreliable energy supplies. Fit-for-purpose regulatory environments, co-investment models and international partnerships are key to reducing risk, crowding in private capital and catalysing greater investment.

The continent’s industrial success stories – and those elsewhere – show that stepping up the value chain is possible and can yield significant benefits for the local population with respect to local value and job creation, thereby leading to positive spillovers for domestic infrastructure development and countries’ innovation ecosystems. The established car industries for internal combustion engine vehicles in South Africa and Morocco; Nigeria’s production of cement, fertilisers and petrochemicals; and the electronic and electrical components produced in Tunisia and Egypt are just a few examples from the continent.

The selection and extent of the opportunities identified in this report are not intended as prescriptions – governments will need to balance their own priorities as they design their industrial strategies – but rather to provide a quantitative description of a subset of specific avenues that could be pursued. Robust market analysis, a clear understanding of project economics, as well as targeted strategies to build a skilled workforce and technological expertise – potentially through well-designed strategic partnerships – can help unlock further potential, guided by an approach to industrial strategy that is data-driven, targeted to sectors of advantage, and amenable to course-correction.