44 GW of "green" electricity, at one quarter (1/8?) of the cost of nuclear energy, based on standard, tested technology, independent of sun and wind, no nuclear waste, no cost for decommissioning, immune to fallout after tsunamis and military aggression. At 135 km, along the navigable Congo River, from the deep-water port of Banana on the Atlantic Ocean. 

The world in 2025

EUROPE

To consolidate its current level of prosperity, to weather the climate transition, to still have some say on the world stage and to prevent illegal migration, Europe must invest - with the most urgent and highest priority - in Africa's manufacturing industrialisation.

WORLD

• The Paris climate targets, even watered down, are in intensive care (UNEP 24/10/2024). With the current policy, it will be 3.1 degrees warmer by 2100. In fast-growing economies and developing countries, a quarter of the increase in emissions is caused by electricity generation with highly polluting fossil fuels. Why not relocate energy-intensive industries to regions of the world, including Africa, endowed with an abundance of green electricity?
• The complex and unprecedented polycrisis facing the world: "Climate transition - Cost of energy - War in Europe - US-China rivalry - Anti-Western resentment in Africa - denatality in the West and in China - Demographic explosion Africa"
• “World Bank ‘optimistic’ about giant African hydro project” Revival of the GRAND INGA Hydropower Project seems more likely now than it has been in years (Financial Times 8/2/2024). GRAND INGA: pourquoi le plus grand projet électrique au monde fait encore rêver le Sud global (Jeune Afrique 17/7/2024)

Shouldn't Europe prepare for the fact that, despite mega-subsidies for CO2 capture and storage, energy-guzzling industries will move to locations close to the source of affordable green hydrogen?

--> Europe must deserve a new partnership with Africa. 

--> European-African green hydrogen: peace in Ukraine and Gaza

Key concepts

"Climate transition - Geopolitically weak Europe is not an island - GRAND INGA green electricity 80% cheaper than nuclear electricity - Critical mass - Multicultural serendipity".

‘The key reform to be undertaken is the structural transformation of Africa, hankered on industrialisation. The value chain integration between Africa and Europe and increased exports of manufactured and agro-processed goods’

Albert Muchanga, African Union Commissioner for Economic Development and Industry

18/2/2022, AU-EU Summit, Brussels

EU investments, NOW, in GRAND INGA accelerate the implementation of the Paris Agreement and strengthen Europe's image in the world.

On 19 July 2024, Ursula von der Leyen, re-elected President of the European Commission, called for investment in defence and clean industry. The Belgian king Philippe wants to protect the Belgian manufacturing industry, take advantage of the new European context in favour of reindustrialisation and "weigh on the global scene thanks to Europe".  

By 2045 Europe will represent only 7% of the world's population, Africa 25%. Could the new European context not mean that, even with the help of subsidies, additional R&D and carbon taxes at the borders, European energy-intensive industries are relocating to regions where electricity costs a fraction of the cost in Europe? Regions, for example in Africa, with a great need for steel, aluminium, ammonia and fertilisers. Even though China today occupies the first place in Africa, a large part of the population, thanks to cultural and historical ties, dreams of the European model of society (universal health care, social services, schools, social advancement, peace and security). In twenty years, Africa will be endowed with demographic dividend (as many highly qualified people in the prime of life as China), 35% of the world's green hydrogen production potential at €2/kg (Europe 1%) and the world's largest AfCFTA free trade market.

Africa realizes that it does not have the experience to participate in advanced international industrial value chains. This is why it is in Europe's best interest to transfer its manufacturing experience to Africa.

Two obvious opportunities: 

1. A thousand Africa-Europe SME partnerships drive Africa's industrialisation. All European “ENABEL”s (Public Institutions for Development Cooperation) are freeing ten of their two thousand employees for one year in order to raise awareness among the general public of the opportunities offered to a thousand vested European industrial SMEs through partnerships with African counterparts. Additional budgets needed: Zero (“Schwarze Null”).
2. Public-private partnership GRAND INGA EU-DRC. The new political leaders of the EU "von der Leyen-Costa-Kallas" in collaboration with BUSINESSEUROPE (EU giants in hydraulic engineering, electrical engineering), the EIB and the AfDB present to the President of the DRC, Tshisekedi, a PPP of 100 billion euros (financing, construction, operation) of the GRAND INGA hydroelectric power plant (a capacity equal to that of 35 nuclear reactors at a cost of green electricity per megawatt hour of one-fourth of that of nuclear electricity. Cost: In a PPP, the for-profit private sector bears all the costs, governments offer certain guarantees. (World Bank ‘optimistic’ about revival of the giant African Grand Inga hydro project. “More likely now than it has been in years”- FT 8/2/2024)

Expected results of these two capitalist activities (encouraged only by the government):

• 20 million decent jobs. The industrialisation of the whole of Africa is capable of creating 20 million decent jobs every year and preventing illegal immigration, inequality, corruption, anti-Western resentments, lack of governance.
• An ecosystem that stimulates serendipity. Massive multicultural partnerships between SMEs in the most diverse economic sectors are at the origin of the unexpected discovery of innovative mega-sectors that are really useful, both in Europe and in Africa.
• The creation of the AfCFTA, the world's largest free trade market.
• Massive partnerships of know-how, between neighbours with historical-cultural ties, create an informal geopolitical understanding, capable of directing – ad hoc – global consultations on subjects that matter (climate, energy, necessary changes in human behaviour, conflicts, migration, free trade, etc. Europe and Africa can change global politics in a ‘revolutionary’ way. EC Commissioner F. Mogherini (8/11/2018);
• The Aggiornamento of European Industry. Threats to the EU economy: global warming, Africa's non-industrialisation (a tenfold increase in illegal immigration from Africa, the lack of a new growth market) and missed opportunities for rapid reindustrialisation of the EU. The rapid reindustrialisation from the energy-intensive low-tech industries of the last century to the more climate-friendly and more recyclable high-tech industries of the twenty-first century is on a larger scale than the loss of several thousand jobs in steel and chemicals.

What Europe should NOT do

Europe urgently needs to stop using Africa as a warehouse for raw materials and green hydrogen to create jobs in Europe. Until now, a short-sighted Europe has refused to transfer its experience of modern industrialisation processes and technologies to Africa. Without this massive and permanent commitment, Africa will never be able to catch up with the industrialised world. Capacity building and financing for micro-SMEs, the EU Corporate Due Diligence Directive, the D4D and SDG advice only have a homeopathic effect, reinforce the condescending image of an Africa that is not ready for modern industrialisation and push "our" new potential market and geopolitical partner into the arms of China and Russia.

More

Africa is heavily involved in the intertwined and mutually reinforcing ingredients of the global polycrisis

Obstacles to Africa's industrialisation

1. The West and China continue to call op Africa as a cheap storehouse of raw materials to add value and create jobs. They refuse to transfer experience with modern industrial processes and technologies to Africa. Without the urgent, massive and permanent transfer of advanced manufacturing know-how to Africa, it is impossible for this continent to catch up with the industrialised West and China. SME capacity building and SDG advice only have a homeopathic effect.
2. Europe only knows the Africa of misery and instability and does not know "the other Africa". (The Africa of the educated demographic dividend, of its abundant renewable energy, of the 15 to 20 quite "stable" Sub-Saharan countries with exposed industrial sites).
3. "Growth Market Africa". Political Europe still sees this as a distant future. Short-term solutions crowd out long-term actions.

The solution as seen by Africa

Africa deeply believes that only its modern manufacturing industrialisation is capable of creating 20 million decent jobs a year and curbing poverty, inequalities, corruption, lack of governance and illegal migration.

How to achieve the manufacturing industrialisation of Africa in the short term?

Expected results of the two major EU initiatives for modern industrialisation

• The creation of 20 million decent jobs per year in Africa

• The creation of a huge new market with 25% of the world's population, including for more climate-friendly and recyclable EU products and services with high added value.

Side effects

--> The peace project of the 21st century

‘Schuman-Mandela’ AU-EU Energy-Intensive Industry Community

PS 2

• "Location GRAND INGA". This project is located across the Congo River, 150 kilometres upstream of where the river empties into the Atlantic Ocean (Banana new deep-sea port), 40 kilometres upstream of Matadi, 225 kilometres southwest of Kinshasa.
• PS:Four thousand billion euros,invested over the past 65 years in "development aid, international solidarity, CSR, capacity building start-ups, SDGs", has failed to curb the asymmetry in prosperity between the West and Africa. During all this time, industrialised countries continued to create value and jobsat home – not in Africa– thanks to the transformation of African natural resources. Is it any wonder, then, that half of African countries did not sign a recent United Nations motion condemning Russia's invasion of Ukraine? EU industrialfor-profitinvestments in Africa, and partnerships between established industrial SMEs, rather than well-intentioned solidarity, can finally bring real independence to this continent and enable former colonisers to earn Africa's trust.

Circular Know-How Economy Africa-Europe SMEs & Young Professionals