Africa’s industrialisation debate is often presented as an economic question. I believe it is much more than that. It is a question of dignity, economic sovereignty and whether we are prepared to build economies that create value for Africans rather than merely supplying the raw materials on which somebody else’s prosperity is built.
The Africa Industrialization Index, covering the period 2010 to 2017, offers a sobering snapshot of the continent’s industrial performance. The figures show significant differences between African economies and, more importantly, reveal how difficult it is for countries to sustain industrialisation once it has begun.
Between 2010 and 2017, Namibia’s score declined from 0.6332 to 0.6162, reaching a low of 0.6038 in 2016. South Africa remained the continent’s strongest performer, although its score also declined from 0.8819 to 0.8371. Morocco, by contrast, improved from 0.7807 to 0.7983.
The lesson is not that one country is succeeding and another is failing. It is that industrialisation requires deliberate choices.
As a Namibian entrepreneur, I find the country’s position particularly instructive. Namibia is blessed with uranium, diamonds, livestock, fisheries, agricultural potential and, increasingly, enormous opportunities in renewable energy and green hydrogen. Yet our economy remains heavily dependent on extracting and exporting commodities, while importing many of the finished products made from them.
That is not sustainable industrialisation. It is participation in somebody else’s industrial economy.
Take our beef industry. We can export cattle on the hoof, watch them leave Namibia, and eventually buy processed beef products back through sophisticated regional supply chains. The same principle applies to minerals. We can extract resources and export them, while the processing, manufacturing, technology, intellectual property and higher-paying jobs associated with those resources are created elsewhere.
This is where the experience of Aliko Dangote deserves serious consideration.
Dangote has demonstrated what happens when African capital is deployed not merely to trade commodities, but to build industrial capacity. His cement business expanded across Africa, challenging the assumption that Africa must always import industrial products. The Dangote Refinery in Nigeria represents an even more ambitious proposition: taking a resource that Africa possesses in abundance and building domestic capacity to process it.
Dangote’s model is not perfect, nor should Africans romanticise individual billionaires as substitutes for public policy. But there is a lesson worth taking seriously: African industrialisation requires Africans to invest in production at scale.
Government cannot do it alone. Business cannot do it alone. Neither can foreign investors do it for us.
The state has a responsibility to create the infrastructure, energy security, skills, financing environment and predictable regulatory framework necessary for industry to thrive. Entrepreneurs must then take calculated risks and build businesses capable of competing beyond protected domestic markets.
There is another misconception we must confront. Industrialisation does not mean abandoning agriculture, mining or other primary sectors. Quite the opposite. The objective should be to industrialise around our natural strengths.
Namibia does not have to become another China. We need to become a more sophisticated Namibia.
Our mining industry should support mineral processing and manufacturing. Our livestock sector should support world-class meat processing, leather, animal feed and related industries. Our fisheries should create greater domestic value before fish leaves our shores. Renewable energy should not only produce electricity or hydrogen for export; it should become the foundation for energy-intensive industries and new manufacturing opportunities.
And this is where I would add another dimension often neglected in industrialisation debates: language and culture are economic assets.
As someone involved in the business of media and language, I believe African languages must become part of the continent’s economic infrastructure. We cannot build modern African economies while millions of Africans remain excluded from information, financial services, technology and entrepreneurship because these systems operate primarily in languages they do not fully understand.
There is an emerging industry waiting to be developed around African-language publishing, broadcasting, digital content, artificial intelligence, translation, education technology and local-language financial services.
Industrialisation is therefore not only about factories. It is about creating intellectual property, technology, brands, knowledge and services that Africans own.
But we must also be honest about the obstacles. Protectionism can produce inefficient companies. State-owned enterprises can become politically captured. Governments can announce industrialisation strategies without fixing electricity, transport, water and bureaucratic inefficiency. Local ownership without competitiveness can simply redistribute economic rents rather than create new wealth.
African industrialisation must therefore be pro-business but not business-at-any-cost; pro-government but not government-controlled; pro-African but not anti-foreign investment.
We need foreign capital, technology and markets. But the relationship must evolve from extraction to partnership.
The Africa Industrialization Index reminds us that progress is neither automatic nor guaranteed. Namibia’s decline should concern us, not because we are at the bottom, but because we have the resources to do considerably better.
The real question is whether we will continue exporting what is underneath our soil, swimming in our waters and grazing on our land , while importing the value created from them.
Africa cannot industrialise by wishing for it.
We must process more, manufacture more, own more, invent more and export more finished products.
And Namibia must decide whether it wants merely to be rich in resources or rich in economic capability.
That is the industrialisation challenge before us.
