![]() ![]() The last half of the essay switches to Africa’s pivot to value addition, zeroing in on Zimbabwe and the Democratic Republic of the Congo as case studies, focusing on chrome, cobalt, and lithium. This article takes minerals as an example of indigenous value addition and how the transatlantic slave trade and colonial rule destroyed it and inserted in its place extractive infrastructures of CRMs export that have remained intact since independence. ![]() ![]() Emphasis is now on value addition, which is the norm in everyday life, rendered informal, marginal, even illegal under colonialism and never revisited, recentered, and formalized after independence. African countries have realized that continuing to export materials raw is an unsustainable path of dependency. This strategy is clearly traceable from the transatlantic slave trade, continuing through European colonialism, to the current critical raw materials (CRMs) framing necessary for its digital and climate tech dominance. For the last 500 years, the West has mapped Africa as a source of raw materials, disrupted vibrant African value addition, and arrogated itself as the place where industrial revolutions (value addition) happen. ![]()
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