African commodities strategy - Video

African Commodities Strategy

The African Commodity Strategy is a flagship project of the AU’s Agenda 2063 and envisions a commodity-led industrialisation: developing Africa’s commodities as a driver for achieving the structural, social and economic transformation of the continent. The strategy aims to identify, formulate and drive the implementation of policies and programmes that will enable African countries to add value, extract higher rents from their commodities, integrate into global value chains and promote vertical and horizontal diversification anchored in value addition and local content development.

To achieve these objectives, in its formulation, the Commodities Strategy will address several key issues including:

·       Reviewing the state of play for high-priority commodities sectors in Africa, namely agriculture, mining, and energy; including the examination of current trends and outlooks, to identify sector-specific opportunities and how to address any existing challenges.

·       Addressing Commodity Price Volatility which continues to be a critical feature of international commodity markets and thus creates challenges for macroeconomic management and exposes developing countries to greater macroeconomic uncertainty.

·       Driving Commodity based Industrialisation which can serve as a launching pad for long term diversification in new non commodity sectors, if well supported by robust industrial policies. These goals are achievable given that Africa boasts significant human and natural resources that can be used to promote industrialisation and structural economic transformation through value addition strategies in all sectors.

This film details the prospects in transforming Africa from a raw materials exporter to a producer of market-competitive value added products and the integration into regional and global value chains.