Africa accounts for only 3.3% of global exports, despite an increase in trade volumes, according to the Africa Export-Import Bank’s African Trade Report. Commodity exports still dominate the continent’s trade, highlighting a persistent gap in value addition across the continent.
Global trade is critical to Africa’s green industrialisation ambitions, opening access to foreign markets, financing and the technologies needed for moving away from extractive economic models toward value chain development. Reforms within the World Trade Organisation (WTO), effective implementation of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) and sustained investment in skills development are critical to advancing the agenda of African green industrialisation.
Closing the technology gap
The technology gap in Africa is underscored by global patent trends. Between 2010 and 2019 four countries, the US, Japan, Germany and China, held 75% of global renewable energy patent applications, while Africa held less than 1%. This statistic reflects a structural exclusion from the innovation economy that would buttress Africa’s green transition.
The WTO’s Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (Trips) sets minimum standards for intellectual property protection, to support innovation and reduce trade tensions. In the wake of the WTO’s 14th Ministerial Conference (MC14) in Yaoundé, Cameroon, it is increasingly clear Article 66.2 of Trips, which mandates developed countries to incentivise technology transfer to least developed countries, is yet to be meaningfully realised.
Some member states proposed developing a “nonbinding, voluntary illustrative list of incentives” to support implementation of Article 66.2. This proposal offers a practical framework, grounded in existing technology transfer principles, to operationalise commitments already embedded in Trips rather than including new obligations. African states should support this proposal if the continent is to bridge the technology gap and build local value chains.
Beyond Article 66.2, licensing fees and restrictive access conditions under Trips continue to limit African countries’ ability to adapt, manufacture and build on patented technologies. This is particularly consequential given Africa’s climate reality.
The continent bears a disproportionate burden of the global climate crisis, yet accounts for less than 1% of global renewable energy capacity additions and attracts about 2% of global clean energy investment, with most concentrated in Northern Africa and South Africa.
Trips does allow for compulsory licensing, enabling countries to access patented technologies without the consent of the rights holder under certain conditions, including public interest and environmental need. Climate change clearly meets this threshold.
African countries used the WTO MC14 to advance discussions on the limited use of this provision and push for its more effective application as a tool to accelerate the continent’s green energy transition.
Building from within: trade integration and South-South co-operation
Closing the technology gap is only one side of the equation. Africa must also build the internal capacity to absorb, deploy and ultimately generate its own industrial base.
AfCFTA, which creates a single market of 1.3-billion people, provides the structural foundation for regional value chains in renewable energy. But intra-African trade remains at about 15%, far below other regions. This highlights the scale of the challenge and the opportunity ahead.
A continent that supplies the raw materials for the global green economy has every reason, and increasing support, to capture far more of its value.
South-South co-operation is an increasingly important lever. Partnerships with countries such as China, India and Brazil offer access to technologies and manufacturing expertise outside traditional North-South frameworks, often on more flexible terms.
When strategically structured, these partnerships can complement AfCFTA’s regional integration goals by directing investment into sectors where Africa holds a comparative advantage, including green hydrogen, battery storage and solar manufacturing.
The China-Ghana-Zambia Renewable Energy Technology Transfer Programme provides a concrete example. Through capacity building, expert dialogue and technical knowledge sharing, it enabled both countries to scale renewable technologies while catalysing national policies and private sector partnerships.
Localisation and skills development as engines of industrialisation
Technology transfer only creates lasting value when it takes root locally. This is where localisation and skills development become indispensable. Foreign direct investment and technology transfer agreements must be linked to deliberate localisation strategies that build technical and vocational capacity, support domestic firms and enable homegrown innovation.
Localisation gives trade its transformative power by ensuring capital and knowledge translate into domestic industrial capacity rather than passing through the continent without lasting effect.
Morocco’s Noor concentrated solar power complex offers a useful blueprint. By embedding local content requirements into procurement, sourcing materials locally and employing local engineers, the project showed localisation drives Africa’s energy transition ambition. The country is on track toward its goal of 52% renewable energy by 2030, and the Noor project helped build the industrial and human capacity to get there.
In Kenya, Strathmore University, in partnership with RES4Africa, trained more than 7,000 students and professionals between 2017 and 2023, helping to build a skilled workforce for decentralised renewable energy solutions.
These examples point to the same conclusion: skills development and localisation must be embedded in procurement frameworks, investment conditions and national education systems, not treated as an afterthought.
It was important that the ministerial conference agenda reflected this broader reality. Reforming Trips to deliver on existing technology transfer commitments, making greater use of compulsory licensing for climate technologies, leveraging AfCFTA as a platform for regional industrial policy, and embedding localisation and skills development into investment and procurement frameworks are all part of the same agenda.
Global trade rules alone will not deliver Africa’s green industrialisation, but they must be structured in a way that enables it.
- Wanjohi is a researcher at the Enzi Ijayo Africa Initiative.
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