Africa’s green industrial future hinges on global trade and investment reform:
South Africa’s G20 presidency identified green industrialisation as one of its priorities for the Working Group on Trade and Investment. Africa faces a pivotal moment as climate-related trade measures tighten and the global economy reconfigures around decarbonisation. This framework supports the integration of developing countries in global green value chains.
The continent has the resources, the demographic dividend and the ambition to lead in the emerging green economy, but without an enabling global trade and investment environment, we risk this opportunity slipping away.
The G20, as the world’s most influential economic forum, must recognise that green industrialisation is not just an environmental imperative but a development strategy. The Africa Future Policies Hub’s recent paper for the G20 Working Group on Trade and Investment outlines the structural shifts, policy priorities and financial mechanisms needed to build a fairer and more sustainable global economy, one where Africa is not left behind.
Green competitiveness for inclusive growth
The global push toward decarbonisation is reshaping trade flows, production systems and industrial policy. From carbon border taxes, like the EU’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism, to green subsidies and technology standards, countries are adjusting the rules of engagement in the name of climate action. But, if these changes are not matched with complementary support for developing economies, they could further entrench global inequality.
Africa’s contribution to historical emissions is minor but many industries, some of which are carbon-intensive and still in their infancy, face new barriers to export. Instead of punitive trade measures that disregard the continent’s development realities, the G20 should champion an agenda of cooperative green competitiveness — one that recognises differentiated responsibilities, fosters innovation and builds productive capabilities across regions.
Renewable energy and mineral value chains must be effectively leveraged to serve as a foundation for new industrial models. To realise these benefits, market shifts, coordinated policy efforts and global partnerships are needed. Inclusive green initiatives must be strategically targeted and embedded within strategic value chains that have the potential to expand industrial capacity. Existing regional initiatives can be harnessed to design pilot projects that are scalable.
The scale and nature of financing mechanisms and investments play a crucial role in targeting and shaping green pathways. To be successful, there must be access to sufficient, highly concessional and patient capital, which is essential for a sustainable green industrialisation agenda.
A path forward: Local strength, global partnership
Green industrialisation in Africa must begin with sectors where the continent has clear comparative advantages and potential for value addition: renewable energy, transition minerals, green fertilisers and low-carbon construction materials like cement, for example. But building competitiveness in these areas is not simply a matter of targeting sectors; it requires deliberate investment in industrial ecosystems.
This includes infrastructure; access to affordable and clean energy; skills development and strong institutions. It means creating industrial clusters where firms, technology providers and research institutions co-evolve around shared innovation. Public-private partnerships, as well as “climate-smart” PPPs, hold the potential to bridge technical and financial gaps in critical infrastructure and new industrial sectors.
At the same time, Africa cannot industrialise in isolation. The scale of transformation required depends on deep and equitable global partnerships with capital, technology and know-how flowing in ways that preserve sovereignty and generate mutual benefit. African countries must work together. Local development strategies must be aligned with regional trade frameworks like the African Continental Free Trade Area to scale up demand and anchor value chains within the continent. Cross-border cooperation holds significant potential to open up opportunities for advancing green industrialisation
Financing the future
One of the biggest barriers to Africa’s green industrial transformation is finance. Green investments, whether in grid infrastructure, hydrogen production or decarbonised manufacturing, are costly, risky and long-term. In a context of rising debt burdens and constrained fiscal space, few African governments can shoulder this alone.
The G20 must prioritise reforms to the global financial architecture that unlock concessional, patient capital for green industrial development. This includes expanding the mandates and capital base of multilateral development banks, enhancing their ability to take on early-stage risk and developing blended finance instruments that can crowd in private capital.
Crucially, financial support must be channelled through platforms that align with country-led strategies. Models like the Türkiye Industrial Decarbonisation Investment Platform, driven by the EBRD and the World Bank, offer promising templates. Regional banks like Afreximbank also have a critical role to play in facilitating green trade finance and scaling African-driven solutions.
From technology transfer to knowledge partnerships
Technology needs to be approached differently. Traditional models of “technology transfer” often imply a one-directional, donor-recipient relationship. But building green competitiveness demands a more collaborative approach. It is one where technology is co-developed, adapted to local contexts and accompanied by institutional and human capacity building.
Initiatives like the Industrial Transition Partnership between India and Sweden, facilitated by the Leadership Group for Industry Transition (LeadIT), show how structured, multi-stakeholder collaborations can produce strategic decarbonisation projects that reflect shared interests. African countries should be supported to participate in — and lead — similar arrangements.
Major economies that impose carbon pricing or border adjustment measures should channel a portion of revenues into co-innovation and green technology diffusion funds. These funds should be earmarked for developing countries. This would not only help mitigate trade imbalances but also build trust in global climate cooperation.
The G20’s responsibility
For the G20, the challenge is clear — align global trade and investment rules with a just, inclusive green transition. That means putting developing countries, not just as aid recipients, but as equal partners in global production, at the heart of climate-compatible growth strategies.
It means recognising that industrial development is not incompatible with climate goals; if done right, it’s the very pathway to achieving them. Green industrialisation can deliver cleaner economies and more resilient, diversified and dignified livelihoods across the Global South.
Africa stands ready. But readiness without partnership is not enough. The G20 must rise to the moment by enabling the policies, incentives and institutions that allow all regions to thrive in the green economy, not just a few.
The cost of inaction is not just lost opportunity, it’s deepening global fragmentation at a time when cooperation has never been more critical.
Maria Nkhonjera is a senior policy officer: public finance at African Future Policies Hub and Shimukunku Manchishi a senior policy officer: trade also at the hub.
- Name of faculty and department: Institute for Cellular and Molecular Medicine, and Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Pathology, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Pretoria
- Picture of the researcher: see attached
- Name of 1st author: Reabetswe Pitere
- Email of 1st author: reapitere@gmail.com
- Name of additional Authors: Reabetswe R. Pitere, Marlene B. van Heerden, Michael S. Pepper and Melvin A. Ambele
- Submitting authority – Faculty of Health Sciences
- Name of ‘submitter’ – Prof Flavia Senkubuge, Dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences (they ask for the dean’s details)
- Email of ‘submitter’ – flavia.senkubuge@up.ac.za
For the full paper see below:
Simphiwe Dana reflects on two decades of music:
I have experienced Simphiwe Dana’s compelling presence on stage many times. Not to say that was her entire personality — no, Dana is much more.
But there are only a few people we meet in life, from close or from a distance, and can instantly tell — they do not walk alone.
Their spirit is that of our forefathers. It carries weight and respect. It announces itself quietly, with humility, yet with a magnitude impossible to ignore.
Now imagine having those thoughts first thing on a Monday morning. My nerves were jittering so intensely, I forgot to have breakfast. It’s not every day that one gets to speak to a voice that has held us through joy, through protest, through heartbreak and healing.
At 10am sharp, as agreed with her PR person, I dialled her number. No answer. I stared at the phone. What now? Before I could decide my next move, the phone rang. Dana.
“I am so sorry I missed your call; I was just making breakfast,” she said, her voice as textured and calm as I had remembered it from countless interviews and performances.
“Do you want a few minutes to eat? I also haven’t had breakfast yet,” I offered.
“Perfect,” she responded. “Go make food and a cup of tea or coffee and I will call you back in a few,” she said.
I had to pause. Am I about to have a telephonic breakfast with Simphiwe Dana? Surely, I have lived a full life.
She called me back in 10 minutes. Coffee on her end. Rooibos on mine. What followed was an encounter with a soul who has been documenting the collective inner life of a nation for over two decades.
Dana’s debut album Zandisile, released in 2004, earned her instant acclaim and multiple South African Music Awards (Samas).
I was so young but I still remember how Ndiredi played on every radio station and on every music show on TV like an anthem. It was a moment — a feeling. Maybe I didn’t understand it fully then but I felt it. We all did.
Dana has released a string of powerful and genre-defying albums. From One Love Movement on Bantu Biko Street (2006), a bold and unapologetic celebration of black consciousness, to Kulture Noir (2010), which won her Best Female Artist and Best Contemporary Jazz Album at the Samas, Dana has always fused the traditional with the contemporary, the spiritual with the political.
Her 2014 album Firebrand further cemented her place as a torchbearer of artistic activism, and in 2021, she offered Bamako, an emotionally rich and musically layered project that she partly recorded in Mali.
Over 20 years since then. A number so large, even Dana herself marvels at it.
“I am really not good at celebrating myself,” she tells me. “I always feel quite awkward about it. But this one feels different. I am giving back to a community that has given me so much for two decades.
“The response from them is thankfulness — and actually, I am the one who is thankful.”
Dana will be celebrating her career at the Baxter Theatre Concert Hall, in Cape Town, on Friday 27 and Saturday 28 June.
This reciprocity between her and her listeners is sacred, almost spiritual. There is something in her tone that suggests gratitude but not in the usual platitudinal way. It’s embodied.
“Something that is rare in life is that someone can live off doing something that they love. I am one such person. That has been given to me by people who listen to my work.”
Reflecting on Zandisile, she tells me: “When I listen to Zandisile today I think to myself, ‘I was so young and wide-eyed.’ I feel like I have always been old — and I am not talking about age.
“In many ways, I feel like I have not changed much from that young girl. I am not as naive anymore but the old soul thing has made me remain the same.”
That old soul presence — it is something you feel when Dana walks into a room or when her voice travels through speakers and enters you. She is not tethered to the conventional measurement of age. She is measured in spirit.
“Now I am understanding why the likes of Bra Hugh Masekela were so youthful,” she says. “Because I think he carried the same spirit.”
Dana is working on a new album — one she feels might be her final one.
“This could possibly be my last album that I write,” she says. “It is treating me differently. Not musically, but it is pushing me into an unknown place.”
Not a statement of resignation, but of transformation: “There is nothing to be sad about. I will still be performing and collaborating. There is so much I still could do.
“The thing about writing is that you usually have to take time away — and with me, it happens to be at least three years. It is very taxing on the mind and spirit. I feel like it takes years off my life … Writing is not for the weak.”
She says this not with despair, but with an honesty that has long been her signature. Writing, for Dana, is not just creative — it is ritual. It demands from her.
Dana’s work has always carried a sharp socio-political consciousness. Her lyrics live in the hearts of the people. They ask, they challenge, they comfort, they uplift.
“As artists, we are watchers and observers. I have gone through many phases and I felt every phase that we have gone through as a country. As they say, the personal is the political.”
The music is her lens.
“I try to understand why people do the things that they do in power. I try to understand if there is something that they are seeing that I am not seeing and I do that through the music.
“I am listening to the people and probing things that they care about. I literally have my ear on the ground.”
She pauses.
“I write about things that bother me. The state of the country right now is something that is always on my mind. Right now, I am trying to understand who we have become and who we will be in the future.”
And always, in true Dana fashion, she adds: “Even when things are dire, there is hope.”
Dana’s music is often described as spiritual. It is not just because of the sonic choices or the lyrical content. It is because she is a messenger.
“Music is from our ancestors. I am a conduit. And I must honour my gift. I have to be responsible for my gift and take care of that gift by taking care of myself.”
Twenty years on, I ask her which songs from her rich discography still move her as much as they’ve moved us.
“Songs like Nzinga — singing that song live definitely moves me. It’s an adaptation of a Jonas Gwangwa song called Flowers of the Nation. I used to hear him perform it live. I would rush out and listen with my hands in the air. For me, that song is church. It is Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika.”
She also mentions Lakutshon’ ilanga, Mayime and Inkwenkwezi.
And then I ask what she would tell her younger self — Simphiwe at 24, wide-eyed, dropping Zandisile into the world.
“I would tell her to go to therapy and deal with your childhood trauma. Don’t use it as some kind of fact of your story season. Deal with your trauma as soon as possible.”
My rooibos has gone cold. I imagine her coffee has, too. But her voice still lingers — clear, intentional, present.
Simphiwe Dana is not just a singer. She is a witness. A question. A balm. A voice from the sacred hills. And if this next album is her last, we must receive it not with sorrow but reverence.
She is not done. Not by a long stretch.
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