Appraising Africa’s paradigm shift at ABLIS 2025 in Rwanda

Africa’s resources are essential for everything from smartphone batteries, laptops to electric vehicles and more. All these essential technological gadgets puts Africa at the centre of both primary cum traditional and emerging industries. These are the key subject matters to be discussed in panelist sessions at the ABLIS Summit as the experts and speakers seek to deconstruct at the foundational level, the reversal of the current pathways which support capital flight, poor economic ratings, institutionalised poverty, resources driven insecurity and insurgencies.

It will also discuss weaponised economic doctrinal trends, election interferences, psyops and foreign inspired regime changes as well as braindrain, drastic effects of climate change, debt burdens, taxation of corporations/double taxation of SMEs/MSMEs, the rise of BRICS and dedollarisation, lack of technology transfer and inactive IP laws, energy poverty, Food sovereignty, education/R&D inclusive of Commercialisation of inventions and the judiciary in economic spaces.

All these affect Africa’s about one billion workforce adversely. There is also the immense factor of Africa’s diaspora positively impacting the continent given its remits over $70 billion back home annually. Africa has an unexplored need to critically attract her diaspora professionals home to add remarkable value but the enabling environment remains a challenge. Besides rare earth minerals, there is a dire need for policies to enable the digital economy and revolution, especially with the upsurge of Artificial Intelligence (AI) which has been predicted to become the first trillion dollar industry.

As Africa’s resources rich local communities and fuel the global economy, they too often bear the devastating costs of a trilogy of challenges which are: degradation of the ecosystem/environment, which leads to damage of traditional lands and livelihoods, there is also labour exploitation involved in dangerous extractive operations in mines, and finally displacement from ancestral territories to make way for new mining or drilling projects, industrial takeovers and carbon colonialism. There is certainly a renewed scramble for Africa with her forests being sold off by various country’s presidencies in deals closed in 2023 to a little known UAE based company, a move that will erode subsistence livelihoods of the citizens in those countries.

Without a doubt, the disparaging scenario between corporate profits and CSR/Community impact has sparked a global wave of protests targeting the econometric, media military-industrial complex (EMMIC) and the corporations that benefit from resource extractions in Africa.

These demonstrations reflect a growing demand for corporate accountability and equitable practices in resource-rich African nations by Western and Asian players alike, as well as their collaborators. As the world transitions toward renewable energy and advanced technologies, the need for ethical sourcing of African resources has to become a sine qua non, standardised model, moral imperative and crucial factor in sustainable global development.

ABLIS Summit 2025 in Kigali, Rwanda is of the notion that the private sector besides government should be the engine room of Africa’s growth, exposing the continent’s economy to all the driving forces associated with sustainable partnerships, corporate governance and collaboration for sustained year on year decades long growth whilst creating jobs and fostering a massive culture of entrepreneurship, innovation and disruption.

All this will be achieved through the unique platform of ABLIS and it’s post event structures, especially with having powerful speakers like Tony Elumelu, Chairman of UBA and Heir Holdings, Akinwunmi Adesina of the Africa Development Bank (AfDB), Dr. Okonjo-Iweala – DG of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), yours truly at the Ministry of Trade of SOAD, Amb. Arikana Quao, Caitlin Nash, Amb. Oliver Chikodzore, Arthur Mutambara – Deputy Prime Minister of Zimbabwe amongst other top professionals.

The Africa Energy Fund (AEF) founder, Eberechukwu Oji of Arochukwu Kingdom, Abia State, who was a former Director at Shell with 30 years experience in the Oil & Gas sector and who is the brain behind the over $2.4 billion acquisition of Shell’s Onshore assets in Nigeria is also billed to attend and make his presence and experiences felt. It still remains to be seen if Africa Rating Agency (ARA) and Ndeipi Inc. USA whilst working to attend will make an impressive impact at the summit. The ABLIS list of partners and sponsors is a trigger happy lineup of heavyweights.

Conclusively, Africa in the three decades approaching, will experience the fastest increase in the working age population of all regions, with a projected net increase of 740 million people by 2050. Nigeria will have a population of about 400 million by 2100 as the third most populated country in the world then. Up to 12 million youth will enter the labour market across the region every year in the coming decades, yet only about 3 million new formal wage jobs are currently created each year.

The Africa Union (AU) must wakeup to the deficits and critical hurdles on the African continent. The economies in the region will recover at a faster pace in the years to come if it can manage the conflicts in their political systems, unite around a developmental cause, invest in education and end the conflicts triggered on the continent.

Africa’s policy should be geared toward sharing the growth benefits more equally across the population by wealth distribution that invests immersively in human capital advancement, fostering economic diversification, infrastructure development and jobs-friendly economic growth. ABLIS intends to advance Africa through global business economic sustainability, and private sector transformation, Pan-African integration and partnerships for shared prosperity.

Concluded.

George is Minister of Trade of the State of the African Diaspora (SOAD).

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