Tag: Africa

Zero Tariffs: How China Quietly Rewriting Africa’s Trade Future

Posted on By Musanjufu Benjamin Kavubu

At a time when trade wars are raging across the world, something remarkable happened. China opened up its market to Africa fully, as it had promised during FOCAC 9 in September 2024. This write-up will have characteristics of great power contestation concerning the African continent, but it’s not a blind hip of praise for Beijing. It’s a fact that China has not in the past treated Africa with an imperial hand, unlike its counterparts in the West, especially Washington, that only deals with Africa on vertical level.

Present Trump 2.o has decided commercial diplomacy will shape his foreign policy, and Tariffs are at the forefront of his arsenal as the United States deals with the rest of the world especially Africa. Even when Washington established the famous African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) in 2000 to give African economies duty free access, at the end of the day countries that didn’t obey US orders were kicked out. The orders are normally political conditions such as human rights records that are hypocritical, after all they set up their country after genocides against native Americans.

China’s policy to grant African countries duty free access was not an overnight decision, it has been decades in the making, based on pragmatic dialogue between the two sides. It all started back in the Forum on China Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) Ministerial conference in Addis Ababa in the December of 2003 when zero Tariff were introduced on selected African exports to China from 30 countries, and by 2018 the number increased to 33.

In September of 2024 the 33 countries were formally granted zero tariff treatment to all their experts to China beyond the selected goods from the past, and this took effect in the following December. Through further dialogues most notably the most recent FOCAC followup ministerial meeting held in Changsha in June of 2025, it was announced that all goods from the 33 African countries, and an additional 20 that have diplomatic relations with Beijing would be eligible for 100% duty free access to the world’s second largest economy.

At the moment all African countries except Eswatini that recognizes Taiwan as a country, have a duty free access to the Chinese market. Eswatini’s diplomatic stance does not make sense because even the United States doesn’t recognize Taiwan in that capacity. As Africa was still figuring out the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) nothing is going to boost the continent’s main trade vehicle like the Chinese gesture for trade and corporation.

Today China has the second largest economy on the planet with a population of about 1.4 billion people, it has a middle class of over 400 million people, this middle class is still growing and it has the characteristics of other middle classes world over, it desires high quality products of all sorts. This opens several opportunities for the African continent, for example through AfCFTA, to meet Chinese demand for beauty products by African start ups in that sector across the continent will require collaboration, and coordinated efforts to make it into the Chinese market for starters. It’s going to take enhanced regional supply chains that will require regional hubs to facilitate the logistics before they hit the ports to head out for China.

For the youth on the African continent to make into sectors like fashion on the Chinese market, they have to scale up production jointly across the continent, improve economies of scale and export competitiveness are some of the areas that African women making designer clothes that meet the Chinese standards will have to take on from time to time to survive. Automatically to meet the Chinese demand African governments have to make sure there are policies in place to foster intra-Africa trade as industrial diversification will be vital.

On July 15th 2025 as Trump was proposing to impose 10%+ Tariffs on the global South, Beijing gave every African a chance to experience this remarkable natural trade evolution between China Africa Corporation, it’s not imperialistic, it’s coherent and inclusive. The question now, is how does each African from an individual level especially the educated youth benefit from having access to 400 million people with enough disposable income and consuming everything at the moment from goods like coffee, and shea butter, to services like art and music? Most African governments know exactly what they will be exporting to China, but it’s important that the individuals also position themselves to benefit from the duty free access.

To get an African product to the Chinese market there must be agents involved, its not a usual opportunity for Africa to be at the up stream of a supply chain as goods get exported to China. To meet the quality standard, more jobs will be created in agriculture, at rural industrial hubs, and in mining. Even in fashion their will be some form of machinery operations. To facilitate logistics, transport is an endless expanse. The best informed will take up the space of export consultancy. To penetrate the Chinese market, online platforms and E commerce are a must.

A few policies at state level must be put in place across the African continent under the watch of the African Union and it’s 2063 agenda the backbone of the AfCFTA, but also individuals like you and me must be ready to take up the opportunities that will be present to benefit from Africa’s zero Tariff access to the world’s largest population.

The author is a research fellow at the Centre for BRICS Studies, Uganda.  

 

 

China’s Role in Africa’s Renewable Energy Transition

Posted on By Nnanda Kizito Sseruwagi

As the leading global player in green/ clean energy, China has played a pivotal role in Africa’s green energy transition through its investments in exploring solar, wind, hydropower, geothermal energy, and nuclear projects at their early stages on the continent. Through FOCAC (Forum on China-Africa Cooperation), China has addressed Africa’s pressing need for sustainable, accessible and reliable energy while at the same time aligning with both the global climate goals as well as its own strategic shift towards green energy development. Across Sub-Saharan Africa, China has reshaped the energy infrastructure, installing over 23 gigawatts of electricity capacity in 27 countries.

More than 55% of the African population is rural-dwelling. The future of impactful renewable energy solutions for rural Africa lies in investments in solar energy, which China has championed. In projects like the Garissa Solar Power Plant in Kenya, China has exhibited its understanding of Africa’s energy challenges by decentralising solutions to address rural-specific energy poverty. It has installed large-scale grid-connected projects with a capacity of 54.6 megawatts (MW), making the Garissa plant the largest grid-connected solar facility in East and Central Africa. The $136 million project was built by China Jiangxi International Kenya with funding support from the Export-Import Bank of China (CHEXIM). It now serves over 70,000 households and spans 85 hectares. Since November 2018, when it was installed, this project has drastically reduced energy costs while also enhancing electricity access in rural Kenya.

While the people of the Central African Republic combine efforts to locally combat climate change, they are joined by a Chinese firm that constructed the Sakai Photovoltaic Power Station to provide clean energy to the Gambella National Regional State. In Namibia, a solar firm was built in 2024 with a capacity of 100 MW. The rate of growth of installed clean energy plants across Africa highlights China’s commitment to green energy development. Countries like São Tomé and Príncipe are the recent beneficiaries of this commitment, with projects such as the ambitious Africa Solar Belt Program, to which the government of China committed 100 million yuan at the 2024 FOCAC meeting. Over 50,000 households are going to benefit from this project by being connected to low-cost off-grid solar systems. By extending energy to underserved communities, China has exhibited its focus on energy equity while fostering sustainable development.

In 2017, Kenya installed a 310 MW Lake Turkana Wind Power Project, thereby significantly reducing the country’s reliance on fossil fuels. This mega project, built by a Chinese firm, currently stands as Africa’s largest wind farm. And it provides over 15% of Kenya’s electricity. Similarly, China backed the construction of the Aysha Wind Power Project, which the Ethiopian government expects to expand and be able to generate 2,000 MW of wind power by 2030. To the south of the continent in South Africa, China Energy Investment Group’s subsidiary, Longyuan SA, built the 2.5 billion yuan De Aar Wind Power Project in 2017. This project taps into the Northern Cape’s abundant wind resources to generate energy. What is apparent in these projects is both China’s technical expertise and commitment to diversifying Africa’s renewable energy portfolio.

Sixty-three percent (63%) of China’s energy financing in Africa is in hydropower. Chinese equipment and expertise have stamped a mark on several key projects in different countries. For instance, Ethiopia’s 6,450 MW Grand Renaissance Dam (GERD) and Zambia’s 750 MW Kafue Gorge Hydroelectric Station have been built by Chinese firms. The dams are also mostly funded by Chinese capital, with Zambia’s Kafue Gorge built with $2 billion, which Sinohydro Corp received from CHEXIM and the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China.

CHEXIM also provided 85% of the total cost of Nigeria’s Mambilla Hydroelectric Power Project, which is projected to produce 3,050 MW at full capacity. All these projects employ thousands of Africans and are helping in enhancing local capacity for Africans to manage their energy resources, while also generating the much-needed power to support the continent’s industrial growth.

There are several other hydropower projects on the continent, including: Ghana’s 400 MW Bui Dam, Zimbabwe’s 300 MW Kariba South Expansion, Rwanda’s 43.5 MW Nyabarongo II Hydroelectric Power Station, and Kenya’s 2.5 MW Koru-Soin, to name but a few. Some of these projects play a double role, both as flood control mechanisms and irrigation schemes, thus addressing both energy and agricultural needs.

Africa is also seeing an increasing role played by China in the less ubiquitous yet equally important sector of geothermal energy. Generating geothermal energy is a green energy area with a low carbon footprint. With support from China, Kenya is currently leading Africa in its generation, with an installed capacity of 863 MW. In 2024, the Chinese firm, PowerChina, invested in Kenya’s Menengai Crater Orpower 22 Geothermal Power Plant up to $93 million.

Recently, in July 2025, China had discussions with Rwanda on what could become the continent’s first major investment in nuclear energy. The China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC) announced that it was having discussions with the government of Rwanda to explore cooperation on nuclear energy generation. Given Rwanda’s signature efficiency, it is likely that this project will come through.

The writer is a senior research fellow at the Development Watch Centre.

 

China is not Colonizing Africa: Prime Minister Sonko’s Reminder is Timely

Posted on By Joshua Kingdom

For the past two decades or so, it has become fashionable for leaders in the west to claim that China’s approach towards Africa is that of colonialism. Being that Africans have perspectives of their own on this issue though, it has become imperative to say how it is it that they view it– and they have. This list includes Angolan head of state João Manuel Gonçalves Lourenço, former Namibian President Hage Geingob, President Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa, and most recently, the Senegalese Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko.  In an interview with China Global Television Network, the West African politician pointed out several reasons as to why this notion does not hold water each of which deserve our attention.

The first has to do with projection i.e. the fact that China’s critics are reading her relations with Africa by extrapolating from how they have themselves gone about it– first with the literal division and rule of the continent’s territory following the Berlin conference (1884-1885), and thereafter neo-colonialism as pundits starting from as early as Kwame Nkrumah’s time have observed. For the Senegalese premier, these presumptions cannot not be extended to China-Africa relations. Instead, he explained that mutual respect, common respect, and shared development have been harnessed in their place.

Luckily, one does not have to take H.E. Sonko on his word to come to this conclusion as rather than being mere mantras that politicians mention when appearing before cameras, the three principles are well supported by activities happening on ground. In this regard, a clear example of Beijing’s genuine desire for the continent to develop has been her heavy investment in infrastructure.

In addition to President Lourenço’s remarks as alluded to earlier thus, he affirmed that China had committed to building the biggest hydroelectric power dam anywhere in Africa in his country. As it stands, the world’s second largest economy has already been involved in over eight seven of the kind in this part of the world! Other massive commitments include the revolutionizing of railway systems. On this, even the Brookings Institute agrees that the benefits to the areas of their building are “obvious.” In their words, the same ensures that “transportation is made easier, faster and cheaper.”

Still, there are those who insist that that is not enough or even that it is misleading. Take the claims that the investments only continue to exist because they provide employment to Chinese nationals. What this reasoning neglects though is that the premise on which it is stands is not sufficient. Because Beijing is more advanced technology-wise for instance, its workforce is better placed to handle some of the situations that these demanding projects come with.

Given also that McKinsey, The Economist, China Africa Research Initiative and countless other institutions have long established that China funded activities have at least 70% (sometimes as high as 89%) of employees being natives, one understands the Senegalese PM’s frustration when he wondered whether it never occurs to Europe and America that Africa well understands her interests and that what it is doing is act in their pursuit rather than be manipulated or coerced.

The Prime Minister touched on another equally important point when he said that this rhetoric is motivated by “anxiety” and “discomfort” stemming from how smooth it is that China and the fifty countries are getting along. To put it in different terms, the said partnership threatens the global order as envisioned by the United States and her traditional allies so they have to run a smear campaign as part of the effort to thwart it.

We know this because it does not stop there. Things are so bad that the Central Intelligence Agency (which is the authority of the United States’ federal government responsible for gathering intelligence world over) has for years now considered China to be a national security threat. Otherwise, how many things does Steve Bannon and Hillary Clinton or Mike Pompeo and Secretary Blinken look eye-to-eye on apart from their disdain for Beijing?

So yes, the pushback that continues to be met on the Asian superpower is unfair. Unfortunately, we should continue to expect it because nations lookout for their priorities first and are often willing to go to the end of the earth to fight any presumed obstacles. By knowing this, we will have empowered ourselves not to fall for the ongoing trickery.

The author is a research fellow at the Sino-Uganda Research Centre.

Lessons from China’s Agricultural Revolution for Uganda’s Rural Transformation

Posted on By Nnanda Kizito Sseruwagi

As a late-developing country, there are remarkable lessons Uganda can draw from China’s transformative journey in alleviating widespread poverty and modernising agriculture. Over the last four decades, China has lifted 800 million people out of poverty, a feat unparalleled in history. Part of the strategy through which this rapid and broad transformation was achieved came via agricultural modernisation and well-targeted poverty alleviation schemes. In Uganda, we still have a majorly agrarian-based economy, with over 70% of the population earning a livelihood from agricultural production. Even then, only 23.7% of the GDP of the country comes from agriculture, with services and industry contributing the rest. This underperformance by agriculture is mainly due to the use of backward farming methods, which subsequently lead to low productivity, which problem China overcame, and can thus provide compelling lessons.

Conceived in 1978 and established in 1982, the Household Responsibility System (HRS) is the current arable land system in rural China, and is highlighted as the foundation of China’s agricultural modernisation. Its major contribution was that it incentivised farmers by granting them long-term user rights on land, which led to increased productivity. This saw an 8.2% annual growth registered from 1978 to 1984, thus causing a significant improvement in the incomes of rural dwellers. Besides this, China managed to develop high-yield varieties of crops by investing immensely in mechanisation and agricultural research and design (R&D). While Uganda’s rate of agricultural mechanisation stands at around 10%, China ranks at 72%, which explains its high yields. And whereas China invests about 5% of its agricultural GDP on R&D, Uganda spends less than 1%.

Farmers usually make big post-harvest losses because they do not have access to secure storage facilities and are disconnected from markets due to dilapidated rural roads. China, therefore, invested heavily in developing rural infrastructure, which reduced post-harvest losses and connected farmers to markets. Today, even the remotest areas have access to markets, and food production has seen significant improvement and stability. As early as 2018, roads had been paved in 98% of China’s villages. The internet age also opened opportunities for farmers to practice digital agriculture through mobile apps, which link them directly to consumers, hence increasing profits by cutting out predatory middlemen from the trade loop.

In 2013, China began the serious implementation of programs directed towards poverty alleviation. They used a multifaceted strategy, combining well-curated projects of agricultural modernisation with targeted interventions in key areas. Poor households were carefully selected by authorities, and solutions tailored to their needs and challenges were applied. Some communities got a fiscal push through microcredit injected into their businesses, while others received vocational training to skill them for productive enterprises. Other highly disadvantaged communities were relocated to areas with more economically viable employment opportunities. Thus, by 2020, over 9.6 million people had been relocated by the Chinese government to areas with better access to services from their previous settlements, where living conditions were inhospitable and economically backwards. Since rural areas often suffer structural barriers to progress, such as poor healthcare and dysfunctional educational infrastructure, the Chinese government also invested in rural education and healthcare to increase school attendance and literacy rates.

The strategies employed by Uganda’s government have so far not succeeded in alleviating poverty or transforming agriculture. From NAADS to OWC, and recently PDM, change seems to happen only in the vocabulary of government programs, not the conditions of those targeted. We still have 21% of the population surviving below the international poverty line, most of whom are part of the 80% rural residing population of the country. Uganda’s farmers remain mostly peasant and dependent on the probabilities of nature, like rain-fed agriculture, for economic survival.

One of the main obstacles preventing wide-scale commercial agriculture in Uganda is the complex land tenure system, which divides land into customary, freehold, leasehold and Mailo land systems. This mix has rendered insecurity and land disputes commonplace, thus not only hindering business but also tying down capital in court battles due to the countless suits registered over land annually. China’s HRS system, where land is state-owned, can be a good model for Uganda to benchmark reform. Pilot projects can be launched whereby farmers are given long-term user rights over large parcels of land to try out technologically advanced farming methods for improved productivity.

We cannot hope to have transformation when only 20% of rural roads are paved. The government must invest in transport infrastructure linking productive agricultural hubs to markets in urban centers. We also must have food processing factories to add value to our harvests and export to the international market. But roads and railway lines are simply hard infrastructure. We must also invest and harness soft infrastructure like the internet, because e-commerce platforms are key in revolutionising market access for farmers, as happened in China.

All this must be done while paying attention to Uganda’s unique political and economic context, since factors like Uganda’s highly heterogeneous ethnic spread can demand attention for localised approaches to poverty alleviation programs and land reforms.

The writer is a senior research fellow at the Development Watch Center.

Learning from China: Adapting Development Strategies for African Contexts

Posted on By Nnanda Kizito Sseruwagi

Although it may not be possible to have a comprehensive cookbook of China’s rapid development recipes, a few policy frameworks implemented in the country can provide guidance. The Chinese development model has not been uniform. It has been at every stage punctuated by state-led industrialisation alongside export-oriented growth, and strategic global engagement, among other factors/ policies. Africa sets its sights on China for direction, as a late developer, because China has mastered the art of leapfrogging growth or catching up. However, given the disparate and diverse political and economic characteristics between the two entities, we need to carefully tailor and adapt what works and leave what doesn’t, from the Chinese blueprint of late and rapid development.

There is a unique political economy framework that made China’s development success possible. Whereas Deng Xiaoping is highly credited for instituting transformative reforms, there was a strong, centralised state which he leveraged to implement pragmatic policies, i.e., special economic zones (SEZs), massive infrastructure investment, and education and technical training to spur human capital development. Deng was also granted a monopoly of power rendered by the Communist Party, which allowed him to have continuity of his policies under the stability of a cohesive political structure. It was also workable to implement policies on a largely ethnically homogenous population, with a social history of collective discipline embedded in Confucian cultural ideas. Such moral compulsion from social norms and habits can hardly be transplanted, but it facilitated the rapid policy implementation we see in China. Additionally, industrial transformation was timely in a nation which was poised to reform its large agrarian economy.

African nations emerged out of colonialism with significant infrastructure gaps. The post-colonial contexts they find themselves in require that they assert economic sovereignty and push for state-led development, which fits well with the Chinese model. It has, indeed, been China at the frontline of supporting Africa’s move to bridge infrastructure gaps, supporting such projects as Kenya’s Standard Gauge Railway and Ethiopia’s Addis Ababa-Djibouti Railway, under the BRI, among countless other projects in several African countries. Moreover, China never lends itself to political interference in Africa as a precondition for its investments, as is common with Western aid and development finance, which comes pegged with prescriptions and conditionalities of all manner, eroding away the autonomy and agency of African states.

The diversity among and within the 54 African nations, however, implies that the continent’s political economy is widely different from China’s. We have so many ethnicities, are corrupted by colonial legacies, plagued by electoral volatility undermining policy continuity, fragmented by opposing governance structures, which ultimately complicates state-led development initiatives.

Weak institutionality and corruption are a serious hindrance to Africa’s development efforts. Weak institutions make China’s state-led, long-term development strategies hard to replicate, because governments face significant opposition and illegitimacy, making the long-term stability that shelters growth absent. Corruption disorients public-spiritedness, turning ruling regimes into cash-and-carry kleptocracies. This is the challenge for countries like the Democratic Republic of Congo, making the implementation of large-scale projects unsuccessful. There is a need to earn legitimacy for African governments by ensuring merit-based and accountable governance that serves all citizens without accentuating ethnic differences. Traditional leaders should also not be merely co-opted but fundamentally involved in local and national development programs, so that they view state development policies as an inter-collective program in which they and their co-ethnics have a stake, and must therefore take responsibility and involvement.

While China’s development leveraged export-led growth to satisfy the global demand for manufactured goods, Africa finds itself in a different context. It is a resource-dependent continent; its economies survive on the extraction and sale of primary commodities like minerals, oil, or agricultural products. The key to transforming this status quo to increase returns rests in domesticating ownership and ensuring the locals have a higher stake in the businesses and industries. This will nip profit repatriation and rent-seeking in the bud. Local ownership here does not mean that indigenous people must be the only ones with economic rights, but rather that even companies owned by foreigners must register locally and transfer the most profitable work of their business to Africa.

Whereas China’s development was easy to mobilise in a socially cohesive population, Africa’s ethnic diversity should not be mourned as a challenge; rather, African governments should embrace traditional and communal participatory approaches to social mobilisation towards development goals. Africa’s ethnic groups were historically assimilationist, and this cultural heritage must be encouraged as opposed to perpetuating colonial divisions that politicised divisive ethnicity.

The writer is a senior research fellow at the Development Watch Centre.

 

 

 

China-Africa Trade and Economic Expo 2025; Together Toward Modernization

Posted on By Joshua Kingdom

Between Thursday 12th and Sunday 15th this month, Changsha city in Hubei province hosted the fourth China-Africa Trade and Economic Expo (CATE) under the theme “China and Africa: Together Toward Modernization.” Attracting over 750 exhibitors from the African continent, the event was a big success as measured by both its immediate objectives as well as in the grand scheme of things as we will now proceed to explore.

To begin with, there is something to say about the fact that the visiting countries were involved in the organization as much as Beijing was. African entrepreneurs were for instance, the ones that set up products in the showing places. Given the diversity of these goods (wool blankets, sweet pineapple bread, chili sauce, sapphires etc.), and that of the countries in attendance (Benin, Tanzania, Lesotho, Namibia, Malawi etc.), it would have been hubris for China to cut out everybody else from the process. Thankfully, those in-charge opted for pragmatism.

It is no wonder then that the numbers representing activity at the four-days come-together speak for themselves such that it cannot be merely passed off as another trade fair for which stakeholders had to attend mostly in honor of an annual tradition. The value of the cooperation projects arrived at hence, surpassed last year’s by over 200% and there number by 410%. And then of course, there were off-shoots that the expo influenced including roadside displays of commodities from among other sectors, manufacturing that the government of Kenya indulged in in five other of China’s provinces.

With scores of business leaders traveling to Changsha, CATE also served as a springboard for connectivity and collaboration. Kenya’s Cabinet Secretary for Investment, Trade and Industry Lee Kinyanjui put across this point well when he remarked that “The event provides a platform for interaction and sharing investment ideas that will lead to strategic partnerships, increase business linkages and enhance trade and investments.” To specify, Rwanda was able to hold special trade and promotional talks during the time that its representatives spent in Central China. The Angolan Embassy too confirmed that entrepreneurs from its countries and those of the Asian economic superpower spoke extensively over dinner.

The international nature of the exhibition (i.e. extending beyond Africa and China) cannot go without mention either. At least 11 organizations of global repute were in attendance for example. Most notably, the United Nations Assistant Secretary-General and Director of the Regional Bureau for Africa, Ahunna Eziakonwa graced the occasion. Posting on X upon delivering her speech, the UN official wrote; “Africa is ready with bankable, scalable & transformative projects. Now, China-Africa investment must rise to meet this ambition – deploying capital that fuels real development & shared prosperity.”

Finally, one should not forget about the position that CATE represents in terms of the broad China-Africa relations. Already, the communist country has been Africa’s biggest trading partner for the last sixteen years uninterrupted. It has also shown a remarkable commitment to the symbiotic relationship through policies such the provision of $20 billion in funding at last year’s Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC). If the Economic and Trade Expo carried on at its present momentum therefore, not even the sky could limit China-Africa friendship.

One instance that could harness CATE in this way (and vice versa) is the recently announced intentions by Beijing to enter a full tariff waiver arrangement with all African states that have diplomatic ties with the state beyond the Least Developing Countries on the continent that are the exclusive beneficiaries of this setup as it stands. For future expos thus, African traders would have more incentive to take part since the profit margins of doing so would have increased.

Moreover, the expo’s momentum in part, directly stems from the resolutions entered at the 5th FOCAC summit particularly as regards to partnership action plans. This is the main reason as to why there was a deliberate effort to expand beyond agriculture and mining at the recently concluded Changsha expo. As Song Wei of Beijing Foreign Studies University has affirmed, this trajectory is geared at catalyzing Africa’s journey towards industrialization– goes back to the theme.

Evidently then, a lot took place in Changsha. It will thus be fascinating to see how the full implications of the 2025 CATE will unfold in the near future.

The writer is a research fellow at the Sino-Uganda Research Centre.

Time Africa to Adopt China-Scale Development Commitment

Posted on By Nnanda Kizito Sseruwagi

Africa is tied to conventional, rudimentary, unambitious, lethargic modes of governance and political-economic behaviour. We pursue cliches of democracy and development and all related norms and conformities that have been taught to us by the developed, Western world with full blindness to our crucial realities.

We lack a grand strategy for development. We are adapted to incrementalism in everything – hoping to make progress through small, gradual steps rather than largescale, ambitious reforms. This road we are on is unlikely to deliver development. And the window within which Africa must catch-up up will eventually close.

There is no guarantee that we cannot be conquered again if we don’t stand up quickly and hold a place as a peer with all developed nations. This child-like place that Africa occupies in the world is not just humiliating but may eventually be exploited through new forms of imperialism in the future in ways we cannot comprehend today.

Think about the defining factors for the survival of nations in the world today; Artificial Intelligence (AI), synthetic biology, quantum computing, robotics, and clean energy. Where is Africa’s involvement or contribution in the global competition to advance in these fields? We only seem to be offering raw materials. In fact, we are the raw materials.

In a world with advanced AI systems, where we face risks of artificial general intelligence (AGI) becoming misaligned with human values, what would Africa do to defend itself against attack in a war where AGI is optimized by an enemy country to cause catastrophic harm based on racial identity? As a continent vulnerable to pandemics, what contribution is Africa making to the development of synthetic biology to enable rapid vaccine development?

Our net contribution to the development of any of these technologies that will shape the future is close to nothing. But the consequences of this may not be as simple as missing out. Lagging behind in the next decades might slide us into new forms of recolonization unless we embrace a development model with the ambition, scale, and discipline exemplified by China’s rapid transformation.

The era and error of foreign aid inculcated in us a dependency on foreign/Western powers by which we ceded sovereignty and agency. Such dependency also drove us to withdraw our commitment to industrialization, infrastructure development, and self-reliance. Western masters disincentivized African governments from developing domestic capacity for economic sustainability because African leaders could beg or borrow to fill gaps in their national budgets. The result is where we are; capable of almost nothing in a world of tremendous opportunities.

Given the urgency of these matters, China’s example for rapid socio-economic transformation from a predominantly large agrarian society full of peasants, to an industrial power with vast skill and intellectual resource, should be studied with a goal to be appropriated and domesticated by African leaders.

Unlike Western nations where capitalism evolved organically and defined how society is governed and resources are distributed, China’s transformation emerged out of massive state-led investment in infrastructure, education, and industry, coupled with a relentless focus on self-reliance. It is the only country where the free-market enterprise developed highly without distorting the politics of the country. Because of this, capital has not succeeded in eroding the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party (CPC). Capital has not undermined the leadership of the Chinese people.

China also exposes the lie that has been told to developing countries especially in Africa – that it takes democratisation in the Western form, to develop. We have suspended all efforts and thought towards development by being tied in an endless web of political bickering over cliches like democracy, human rights, freedom, etc.

China has guaranteed the rights and freedoms of her people outside the normative governance models of the West. It has liberated over 800 million people from poverty without ticking any boxes that the West dictates to Africa as prerequisites for development.

Without Western democracy, China constructed 37,000 kilometers of high-speed rail between 2000 and 2020. Without Western democracy, China has urbanized over 500 million people, and lifted 800 million out of poverty. Without Western democracy, the CPC prioritized long-term planning over short-term populist gains and accountably executed the aims it set out to achieve for its citizens, with a discipline in execution unimaginable in the West.

Africa must suspend many political distractions and pursue a tunnel vision of development and socio-economic transformation. We are 1.4 billion people with a median age of 19. This is a demographic resource with potential to scale development – it is a tremendous work force. But the window to achieve this will not last forever. Our young people will grow old. The peace we enjoy is not guaranteed to last forever. We must coordinate our commitment to this goal when we still can.

The Writer is a senior research fellow at the Development Watch Center.

Why U.S Plan For D.R Congo Question Good for U.S not Kishasha

Posted on By Alan Collins Mpewo

Massad Boulos, the United States (US) senior advisor for Africa was on Thursday, April 17, 2025
introduced in style. Or did he introduce himself in style. The entrance into the role in Africa is the
most interesting because he was introduced at a time when there is a lot happening globally, but
importantly, Democratic Republic of Congo – the raging war between the D.R Congo government
in Kinshasa, the Rwanda backed M23 rebel faction. He started the introduction by highlighting the
U.S concerns towards D.R Congo under Trump, before unveiling the grand plan his country has for
not only D.R Congo, but the East Africa Region, with “America first.” Massad Boulos is yet
another visitor in the D.R Congo. His visit will be a strategic entrance that will have long standing
effects with the understanding of today’s contemporary matters.He made it clear that the US is pro
peace and only looks forward towards peaceful existence of the East Africa region to which D.R
Congo is instrumental because of the effects it pauses to the global economy if the war continues.

Addressing African media and researchers, Massad Boulos, unveiled the U.S grand plan for the D.R
Congo stated that the U.S calls upon M23 to withdraw its operations from the country, adding that
Rwanda should cease with immediate effect funding of the M23 rebels. He maintained the
allegation of Rwanda backing the M23 rebels in D.R Congo throughout his communications, an
indicator of the U.S position on the conflict. The U.S might have become another official Rwanda
diplomatic enemy in light of Rwanda’s reaction to other countries that have openly stated their
opposing positions towards Rwanda. Massad Boulos intimated how he has been on a busy schedule
in the past weeks on the Africa continent, meeting among others, the current head of the East Africa
Community, H.E William Ruto, President of the Republic of Kenya, Rwandan President Paul
Kagame and officials in Kampala.

D.R Congo is one such country that will never run out of ‘friends’. History has shown that, and the
keen observers know that this ‘friendship’ has been posited on various factors, but mineral wealth.
Looked at closely, D.R Congo has been having the conflict ongoing for a long time, with M23-
Rwanda-D.R Congo occasionally making headlines to regional body discussions like the EAC,
SADC, and Africa Union, and internationally to the United Nations Assembly. Now that the U.S
withdrew fulfilling much of its obligations to the U.N, all eyes are on Massad Boulos’s grand plan.
With diplomacy during war, intentions are advised to be reviewed from beneath rather than from the
onset. Afghanistan and Ukraine are world examples whose mention of U.S involvement will never
be erased. Massad Boulos noted that peace in D.R Congo will be beneficial for every nation
globally, but with a major focus on economic stability. No doubts about that.

But the eye opener of Massad Boulos’s highlights was that there are companies of U.S origin whose
operations were affected by the advances by the M23. He called for a win-win diplomatic
conversation of key players, as a stair-way for U.S companies to make penetration into the D.R
Congo markets. In the various analyses by Development Watch Centre regarding the D.R Congo
question, what has been maintained is the need for honest diplomacy in the bid to achieve long
lasting peace in D.R Congo. It is therefore shocking to wonder what makes Massad Boulos think
that the questionable U.S economic diplomacy will be the key to unlocking the much sought peace
in D.R Congo.

The EAC and SADC not so long ago had their armies in D.R Congo, both having later withdrawn
due to various geopolitical realities. The new African Union Secretariat has been on a spree of talks
for the concerned parties in the ongoing war. The United Nations security council has before it
ongoing discussions with China’s backed Global Security Initiative framework lingering for
realising longlasting peace. But Massad Boulos believes the U.S can pull off the magic of the

century in the D.R Congo. History laughs in the face of any such plans. The U.S now faces much
criticism under the Trump administration because of its foreign policy. It therefore goes without
saying how interesting it is that Massad Boulos intends to solve the D.R Congo question by
engaging countries that the U.S imposed tariffs on, and suspended from AGOA, while using an
economic policy of laying a foundation for U.S private sector investment into the region. But it is
not surprising because of the growing list of allies the U.S is losing by day.

The U.S and Ukraine deal on rare earth stands at great risks, China has recently reciprocated tariffs
on some rare earth that the U.S has been benefiting from, the European Union is on guard, and what
a way to seek a solution, but from a war stricken D.R Congo. Massad Boulos, just like his bosses in
Washington D.C is aware of the U.S steady decline of influence globally, and for long, Africa had
been neglected on its radar. Now with the East refusing to bend the knee, and growing economic
uncertainties, D.R Congo has been pointed to as the antidote. But certainly, peace will not be
achieved in D.R Congo through such an entrance as highlighted by Massad Boulos. In fact, it is not
about peace, but a seek of grip on Africa’s mineral cradle Washington badly needs.

Alan Collins Mpewo, is a Senior Research Fellow, Development Watch Centre.

Governance: Lessons from Chinese Political Discipline

Posted on By Nnanda Kizito Sseruwagi

Khatondi Soita Wepukhulu, a Ugandan journalist of rare find, recently challenged my long-held views on corruption. Over time, I had come to deeply question the prevailing narratives surrounding corruption among Africa’s ruling elites. I had come to think, and still do, that there are fundamental epistemological miscomprehensions and biases about corruption in Africa, which are less about corruption and more about the racial-stereotypical description of Africans in general and their leaders in particular. The dominant discourses on many issues in Africa and about Africans are usually overgeneralized and oversimplified. This is largely still the case in discussions on corruption.

My agnosticism was firstly on the scale and impact of elite corruption on the national development of African countries. I grew up writing poetry against corruption. It was the easiest subject for creative writing in literature classes because we were raised to think it was Africa’s biggest problem. However, a counter-narrative emerged when my mind was opened to the actual fiscal capacity available for potential embezzlement and misappropriation of public funds in a country like Uganda.

Let us first consider the structural constraints of public finances in many African countries. Given our poverty, many African governments have limited money to spend. Our budgets are much smaller compared to the size of our economies. Our basic needs also outspend our incomes. For instance, Uganda’s tax-to-GDP ratio is about 13%. What this means is that the total amount of taxes collected by the Ugandan government each year is equal to only 13% of the country’s total economic output (GDP). This clearly shows that a very small fraction of Uganda’s economy is taxable/taxed, and consequently, the government has little money to spend on public services like healthcare, education, and infrastructure. Also, for context, Uganda’s tax-to-GDP ratio is much lower than that of many wealthier countries, where the average is 34%.

The second leg of the argument above is that Uganda/African countries’ already constrained budgets are unavoidably committed to non-discretionary spending obligations. Remember, we are talking about the budget before it is passed and, thus, before one shilling of it has been misappropriated. The non-discretionary spending obligations referred to above include committed/recurrent expenses that must be paid by law or out of necessity, meaning the government of Uganda has no choice but to spend this money appropriately. Some of these expenditures include: debt payments, i.e., paying back loans and interest; salaries for government workers such as teachers, members of parliament, RDCs, doctors, soldiers, and police officers; pensions and social security to retired government workers; basic public services like healthcare, education, and security that the government must provide. If we break down Uganda’s national budget, it is clear that a significant portion of it is allocated to these committed expenditures. For instance, in the recent budget, debt Repayment consumed 3.1 trillion for external debt and UGX 9.1 trillion for domestic debt. Wages and Salaries of government employees consumed UGX 7.926 trillion. There are also so many other expenses that cannot be captured due to limited space in this newspaper, such as scholarships for government-sponsored students in universities, etc. All these mandatory expenditures combined amount to approximately UGX 29.126 trillion, representing about 40% of our total national budget. Compared to any wealthy, developed country, this is a substantial allocation to non-discretionary spending, which limits the government’s fiscal space or financial flexibility to spend on new development programs, or for that matter, to steal the money.

The intriguing paradox presented by the fiscal reality of many of our African governments, as described above, begs the question: If African governments have so little extra money to misuse, can corruption really be the main reason for underdevelopment? Even if our leaders were to steal all the money that wasn’t already budgeted for recurrent expenditures (quite an implausible scenario), there still wouldn’t be enough to make a big difference in our countries’ development.

That is the mathematical impossibility and first indictment I found against the banal, stereotypical, overused platitude that corruption is the biggest cause of underdevelopment in Africa. Realistically speaking, for a typical African country like Uganda, with just about 2-3% of its GDP available to spend on development projects due to budget limitations, the resulting infrastructure gaps – whether it is insufficient electricity, poor public transport system, poor education/medical facilities – are inevitable regardless of the ethical height of our leaders. We could as well appoint Jesus, Mohammed, and Budha to govern Uganda, and they would do little to nothing to provide public goods and services with such a lean budget.

Of course, there are even many other arguments to deconstruct the corruption narrative. For instance, many of the developed nations actually experienced significant corruption during their periods of industrial transformation.

The wisdom from the foregoing observations made me realise that the development challenges facing African nations may be more fundamentally rooted in structural economic constraints such as low tax bases, limited industrial capacity, unfavourable terms of trade, and debt burdens – than in governance ethics. “It is the political economy, not the morality of African leaders, Stupid,” I might say.

Then enters Khatondi.

My conversation with Khatondi Soita Wepukhulu on corruption and its effect, if any, on Uganda’s development took a different tangent when she said the economics of corruption were beside the point!

“When some minister in China is hanged for stealing $100 million, it isn’t because the dent to the economy is big. Moralisation of corruption by the political elite of the day is super crucial to building the nationalist consensus required to do other things,” she said. This was an argument difficult to challenge.

She argued that “China and the Asian Tigers we admire have a strict culture on theft of public funds… What our normalized theft does is kill nationalist agency and responsibility of self towards country.”

“That is the sort of harm that a larger public wallet can’t rectify.” She continued.

I couldn’t agree more.

Khatondi’s argument introduced me to a profound dimension of why corruption in Africa matters, which I had since overlooked. I read in her point something which has been significantly degraded almost to extinction in Museveni’s NRM government – the existence of a strong public spirit in public service!

Current estimates show that China has a nominal GDP of approximately $18.28 trillion – which comes to about $37.07 trillion in Purchasing Power Parity terms (PPP). So, if a Chinese minister is executed for embezzlement of $100 million, it can’t be primarily because the theft presents a serious threat to the performance of the Chinese economy. Such strict political discipline rather represents something far more fundamental to the health of the nation: the establishment of moral authority and collective purpose in national politics.

I think that China stands highly uncompromising against elite corruption not because such theft would bankrupt its inexhaustible treasuries but because it would corrupt the soul of the Chinese state… it would fracture the moral legitimacy of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The severe punishment of corrupt Chinese officials, therefore, serves as a powerful ritual reminding other CCP ruling elites of the primacy of national interest over individual enrichment.

In the morning of the NRM government in the late 80s and early 90s, the state’s leadership viewed itself as a servant to a national mission. The stark contrast today is that NRM ruling elites stand rather as privileged beneficiaries of power. The moral authority that enables the Chinese government to demand sacrifices from its citizens in service of long-term development goals is absent in Uganda because of the corrupt degeneration of the NRM political class. That might be the biggest threat to the development of our country.

The normalization of elite theft in many African states has corroded the very foundation of national purpose. It is hard to see, for example, in Uganda, whether the government still has a purpose to power. It seems President Museveni’s will to power has degenerated into holding power for power’s sake, given the lawlessness with which corrupt public officials who occupy key NRM positions walk scot-free. When Ugandans regularly witness politicians engaging in brazen self-enrichment, it fractures our nation beyond the economic impact of corruption. It breeds a cynical individualism that now sees everyone buying the biggest Toyota to manoeuvre giant pot-holes in our roads instead of caring for the public infrastructure systems for the collective good.

This is why my initial persuasion on simply increasing African countries’ fiscal capacity, while important, cannot solve our fundamental problem. Widening our national budget space might enable more development spending even with some leakage to corruption, but it cannot restore the moral authority required for transformative national projects. Our leaders cannot demand sacrifice from us while they openly engage in self-enrichment.

China’s strict political disciplinary model echoes a profound lesson: uncompromising moral standards for leadership are central to building public trust with citizens, which rallies them around the nation’s development vision. Unless the NRM government rebuilds its moral authority over the state through a genuine commitment to public service, not even the vast oil resources we are hoping for will fuel our country’s transformation. When history books are written, perhaps NRM’s greatest corruption will not be the theft of money but the theft of Ugandans’ faith in the state to do good.

The writer is a senior research fellow at the Development Watch Center.

 

How to Modernize Uganda? Lessons from China’s Agrarian Change

Posted on By Nnanda Kizito Sseruwagi

Mathias Walukaga in Ekyatusomosa Lweera, Herman Basudde in Mweraba Ngenze, and Kazibwe Kapo in Sigwa Jajja Wo all sing about a common Ugandan phenomenon – the migration of people, often as individuals, on a lonely search for economic opportunity, from rural to urban centers. Whereas the central message in each of their songs is different, they all sing about work and in the process aspects of rural-urban migration filter through the message, showing how one’s fortunes usually change for the better when one leaves their villages to work in towns.

In the broader processes of national development and transformation, massive rural-urban migration, as opposed to individual migration, facilitates structural transformation in the economy, society, and politics. No country developed without experiencing increased migration of people from rural areas to urban centers with the attendant shift from subsistence agriculture to industry and service delivery as the major sources of employment and livelihood. The message in Walukaga, Basudde and Kazibwe’s songs is that rural-urban migration is economically transformative.

China is a notable example of a country which developed by systematically organising its rural–peasant population within national projects of state modernization which saw its rapid socio-economic transformation.

China harnessed its vast rural labour force for national development to enable it to transition from an agrarian economy to a global industrial powerhouse in what is known as the Great Leap Forward. Whereas the social and human consequences of the Great Leap Forward were an astronomical failure, in the end, the Leap set China on a course for long-term industrial growth. I am not suggesting the adoption of a Great Leap Forward for Uganda, but I carry the understanding that forms of violence have been central to the development process in all nations. Karl Marx, by far the greatest political economist, was cognisant of the brutality of the process of development as involving forced dispossession and coerced transformation of peasants into providers of free labourers in the process of “primitive accumulation.” Marx did not think that the peasant should be saved from this fate since the peasantry was “a relic of a past mode of production now on its way out: unproductive and, mostly, politically backward.”

More recently in the early years of this century, China set out to stimulate economic growth with rapid urbanization as its key strategy. How did China turn rural land into urban centers at an accelerated pace?

Firstly, unlike in Uganda where leaders are preoccupied with politics and power, one of the most preoccupying issues among leaders in the People’s Republic of China is solving “China’s Agrarian Question.” China’s leaders share a long-standing ideological goal of driving industrialization and urbanization.

Like China, Uganda urgently needs to modernize the countryside, reduce poverty and transfer rural peasants into the urban economy. This process will enable us to shift large droves of our population from tilling the earth in villages to being integrated into higher-value employment in industry and service sectors.

Countries which have most of their people employed in sectors of service delivery and industry are wealthier as opposed to those reliant on agriculture for employment. The current disaster in Uganda and many African countries is that agriculture still employs over 70 percent of our labour force which definitely contributes the least to our national wealth/GDP. In contrast, the world’s biggest economy – the United States has over 77% of its GDP derived from the service sector, 20% from industry and just 1-2% from Agriculture. In China, the GDP is distributed between the service sector, industry and agriculture at approximately 54.6%, 38.3% and 7% respectively.

To return to the question of how China increased urbanization in recent decades, let’s first observe the fiscal reforms of the early 1990s. The Chinese government reorganized national budget allocations by reducing the financial support it extended to local governments. This forced lower-level governments to find means to be financially self-sufficient. This consequently fundamentally altered how local governments managed revenue generation and land use in the countryside.

Additionally, local governments turned to land as a primary source of revenue. In China, rural land is collectively owned by village communities whereas land in urban areas is owned by the state. Under the new fiscal system, local authorities began systematically converting rural land into urban land which allowed them to lease the newly classified land to developers for a profit. This became an essential strategy for generating revenue since land sales to private investors and construction companies provided large sums of money that could be used for local development projects.

These policies increased pressure on rural land and the consequent economic challenges in the countryside propelled more people to migrate to cities in search of better opportunities. Indeed, this was a migration trend that had already been underway with China’s broader economic reforms, which opened it to foreign investment and turned the country into the “factory of the world.” As industrialization expanded, the cities became economic hubs that offered higher job opportunities and wages compared with the countryside. The mixture of rural economic distress and the pull of urban job opportunities accelerated rural-urban migration.

The rapid urbanization fuelled by land conversion and migration contributed to China’s economic boom, as its cities became the centers of industrial production, commerce, and innovation that we know today.

Whereas these processes faced widespread resistance from villagers, as would be expected, they were and are inevitable and necessary processes of modernisation. This is how China uprooted its peasants from agrarian modes of livelihood.

The more I commit to understanding development discourse, I find that the only way for underdeveloped countries to achieve socio-economic transformation is through undergoing ruthless processes of converting their mass populations of peasants involved in farming into workers in industries and service sectors. I have not yet known any process where this happened in peace and harmony. Except for a handful of countries that sat on mega oil reserves which simply pumped oil out of the ground to grow their economies, all the world’s nations, regardless of how much mineral resources they had, had to undertake significant land reforms in the process of “depeasantization.” That’s the missing conversation in Uganda’s political talk.

The writer is a senior research fellow at Development Watch Center.