The "Poutin" tipping point

Massive industrial EU-investments in Africa save the entire planet

Polycrisis “Climate - Energy - Pandemics - War in Europe - Forced migrations”

Summary

Many crises at the same time reinforce each other and threaten the world. Contrary to popular belief, in the era of the current polycrisis, with Putin as a tipping point, Africa’s advanced industrialisation is capable of saving the entire planet.

Europe and Africa urgently need to discuss together a "win-win" new deal on an equal footing. Africa is a new important market with abundant natural resources and renewable energy that the world needs. At the moment Europe has the manufacturing processes and technologies.

Thousands of vested African industrial SMEs seeking partnerships with international peers will sooner than later develop brand new products for the AfCFTA, the world's largest free trade market. Products made in Africa and based on the most advanced technologies. Together with hundreds of multinational manufacturing investors, each year they create millions of formal jobs, in the short value chain and without significant CO2 emissions.

An Africa-Europe win-win geopolitical partnership could silence Putin and be copied by other continents and finance the entire planet to emerge from a polycrisis "Climate - Energy - War in Europe - Forced Migration".

European entrepreneurs only know the "miserable" Africa, not the "other" educated Africa, its 15-20 Sub-Saharan countries with stable institutions, connected industrial sites and its abundance of renewables. African SMEs fear Western dominance in partnerships.
The remedy. Europe organises a guided change of mentality around the theme "Africa is not what you think". Africa trains its SMEs on "Why and how succeed in win-win international industrial partnerships".

Africa 2023-2050

Africa 2050: 25% world’s population (Europe 7%)
Abundance of African renewable energy (IRENA 2022)

60% of global solar, 37% of global green hydrogen production capacity

World natural resources, incl. climate-strategic raw materials

Hydroelectric project GRAND INGA DR Congo (44 GW) = 35 electro-nuclear power reactors

(France: 44 active reactors)

Regardless of wind and sun, no nuclear waste, no risk of fallouts after military attacks or tsunamis, no cost of decommissioning.

Africa is endowed with 37% of the world's green hydrogen production capacity at €2/kg. Energy-intensive industries such as steel, aluminium, fertilisers, petrochemicals and cement can be produced in Africa without emissions.
Thanks to cheap, ubiquitous, decentralised solar energy, traditional industrial production activities can – in the short value chain - flourish in African villages.
A need for12 million formal jobs a year.

AU-EU partnerships for mutual benefit

If you produce aluminium in Europe at an electricity price several times higher than in other parts of the world, what is the point of supporting these companies when you can produce more favourably elsewhere in the world? If I had an aluminium company, I wouldn't like that message”.

(Thomas Leysen, UMICORE, 17/9/2022, De Tijd)

In 2050, Europe will represent only 7% of the world's population, Africa 25%.
Europe does not know “the other Africa” of the 10-15 “stable” Sub-Saharan countries(*) with an educated middle-class of both genders, an abundance of renewables, arable land of the world, climate-strategic raw materials and accessible/connected industrial zonings.
When the external costs of fossil energy, of nuclear waste and decommissioning are added to the current cost of energy, there is a real chance that, even after the Putin aggression, the cost of energy in Europe will remain high and that energy-intensive industries will relocate to regions with an abundance of renewable energy. Precisely in tropical regions where 85% of the population has to survive in a precarious and hopeless daily economy.
Carbon offset programs stimulate investments in Africa’s productive economy. Energy-guzzling industries that operate without emissions see their stock prices skyrocket.
Green hydrogen. It is to Europe's advantage that Africa, instead of fully supporting Eurocentric economic policies, initially uses its abundant renewable energy reserves to increase the competitiveness of its own productive economy, creates millions of decent jobs, and exports only its surplus green hydrogen.

When Europe massively transfers its experience with international industrial value chains and advanced, labour-intensive manufacturing industrialisation to Africa, the combination of an abundance of African renewable energy and manufacturing industrial skills could create up to 12 million decent jobs each year and drive the realisation of the world's largest AfCFTA free trade market. (25% of the world’s population).

Vested entrepreneurs who massively invest in Africa's modern industrialisation, with their own resources and/or with bankable projects, and thousands of AU-EU SME industrial partnerships “for mutual benefit” offer a solution and finance the globally linked challenges “climate - energy - war in Europe - forced migration”.
On top of catalysing Africa’s inclusive and sustainable industrialisation they create an informal but powerfulAfrica-Europe geopolitical entente that silences Putin. (**)

EU governments just have to promote investments in Africa,that's all!

Africa can choose between West and East. Europe needs Africa more than the other way around.

Results. The massive transfer to Africa of advanced European manufacturing experience:

creates up to 20 million decent jobs per year: “Jobs & Modernity”, that is what Africa is concerned about;
stimulates the realisation of the world's largest AfCFTA free trade market (2050: 25% of the world's population); a new huge market for innovative EU products and services;
prevents conflicts and forced migration;
prevents unrealisable or hypocritical, Eurocentric EU regulation (CBAM, value chain due diligence, …);
prevents anti-Western resentments;
achieves the SDGs from within;
saves Europe 25% of its carbon emissions;
creates an informal but powerful Africa-Europe geopolitical entente that silences Putin;
limits ODA to urgent humanitarian needs.

Therefore, in Europe

NOW. Massively promote "the other Africa" to encourage experienced entrepreneurs - not micro-entrepreneurs - to invest in fairly large-scale manufacturing industries in Africa or to forge partnerships with peers, for example in the 15 sub-Saharan countries with fairly stable institutions, a highly skilled middle class, accessible industrial sites and eternally renewable energy. EU governments just have to promote “the other – promising Africa”, that's all! The modern industrialisation of ten "stable" sub-Saharan countries accelerates the prosperity across the whole of Africa.
NOW. Compensate for the almost inevitable gradual decline in Europe of energy-intensive medium-tech activities, and relocation to low-cost hydrogen regions, by stimulating an ecosystem in Europe that values dormant massive R&D libraries and encourages investment in innovative and more sustainable and more recyclable high-tech manufacturing industries and related services;
NOW. Do not leave the industrialisation of Africa and its right for modern comfort to China, India and Russia.

PS. Africa and the Western academic world and think tanks

A multidisciplinary team of academics studies the effect of the co- and relocation of European energy-consuming industries to Africa and Africa's modern manufacturing industrialisation, submits a substantiated advice to politicians. How many jobs will be lost in Europe? How many jobs are created in Africa? In Europe? The effects on global CO2 emissions, conflicts, migration and geopolitics?
“Over the past 60 years high-income countries have invested over 4000 billion euros in development aid. With varying degrees of success…” (INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT COOPERATION TODAY. A radical shift towards a global paradigm - Develtere, Huyse, Van Ongevalle- KU Leuven-4/202)… (or …“Traditional development aid has failed to curb the asymmetry of prosperity and well-being between the industrialised and non-industrialised worlds).

(*) The Economist Democracy Index 2022 Sub-Sahara Africa (Ranking Feb 1th 2023) Landen die een zekere graad van democratie en stabiliteit verworven hebben. 1. Mauritius; 2. Botswana; 3. Cabo Verde; 4. South Africa; 5. Namibia; 6. Ghana; 7. Lesotho; 8. Malawi; 9. Madagascar; 10. Senegal; 11. Zambia; 12. Liberia; 13. Tanzania; 14. Kenya; 15. Sierra Leone; 16. Uganda; 17. The Gambia; 18. Côte d’Ivoire; 19. Benin; 20. Nigeria.

(**) EUROPE AND AFRICA CAN CHANGE GLOBAL POLITICS IN A "REVOLUTIONARY" WAY. ‘Look at the numbers, look at the demography, look at the richness – natural resources, of the people. You are a big global player and together, Europe and Africa, can shape the features of international relations in quite a revolutionary way.’ (EC Commissioner F. Mogherini, 8/11/2018

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