The ‘Made by Africa’ Initiative
The International Trade Centre unlocks Africa’s economic potential through value chain development
Africa’s economic landscape is evolving rapidly, with the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) paving the way for deeper regional integration and value creation.
The AfCFTA aims to unify a market of 1.4 billion people, with a combined GDP of nearly $2.5 trillion. By 2029, the agreement alone could boost intra-African trade by up to $22 billion if there was full tariff liberalization. However, addressing additional trade frictions and capitalizing on expected economic and population growth could unlock an even greater opportunity, tapping into $37.6 billion in unrealized intra-regional trade potential.
To fully harness this opportunity, policymakers and businesses need data-driven insights into high-potential sectors and the constraints that businesses operating in these sectors are facing.
In response, the International Trade Centre (ITC) has launched the ‘Made by Africa’ initiative, a comprehensive assessment on Africa’s most promising value chains and the required support for evidence-based technical assistance.
In 2022, ITC, in partnership with the African Union (AU) Commission and the European Union (EU), published Made by Africa: Creating Value through Integration, a landmark report that identified 94 value chains across 23 sectors.
These value chains were selected primarily based on their feasibility, which assessed input availability and the capacity to transform these inputs into final products.
Additional indicators were then applied to evaluate their desirability, ensuring that the selected value chains also contribute to the region’s broader development objectives, such as boosting intra-African trade, reducing import dependency, diversifying economies, and creating jobs.
ITC’s methodology combined robust data analysis with insights from over 10,000 African businesses, sector experts, and other stakeholders to understand opportunities and remaining gaps in these value chains.
Building on the findings of Made by Africa, ITC launched a second phase to conduct deep assessments of three high-potential value chains to inform the EU’s Global Gateway initiative:
Formulated Complementary Foods (FCF): Focused on Ready-to-Use Therapeutic Foods (RUTF), fortified blended flours, high-energy biscuits, and infant formula.
Pharmaceuticals: Specifically targeting antibiotics and vaccines to enhance Africa’s pharmaceutical self-sufficiency.
Automotive: With a special emphasis on electric vehicle (EV) battery production, leveraging Africa’s strategic mineral resources.
In this second phase, ITC evaluates different recipes for infant food, chemistries for e-vehicle batteries and specific mixes of active and inactive ingredients in antibiotics and vaccines.
Looking at mining, production, trade and market access data along with addressing policies and remaining gaps to support businesses’ needs, this diagnostic will lead the way to operational roadmaps of Global Gateway pilot projects.
As global demand for electric vehicles (EV) soars, with e-vehicle trade growing 5.5 times faster than global trade overall, Africa has a unique opportunity to establish itself as a key player in the e-vehicle battery value chain. The continent holds 76% of the world’s cobalt production, 50% of manganese, and 23% of phosphates—critical minerals for battery production.
Nevertheless, most raw materials are exported to Asia for processing, preventing Africa from deriving greater value from its natural wealth. Recognizing this gap, ITC conducted extensive research to assess Africa’s capacity to locally manufacture EV batteries, focusing on light vehicles and two- to three-wheelers.
The analysis shows that while sodium-ion batteries can be produced with readily available local inputs such as sodium, carbon, iron, and aluminium, lithium-ion battery production will require additional sourcing of critical inputs such as graphite, lithium, and nickel, which are less abundant in Africa. Here, investments into mining or international sourcing will be required.
ITC’s analysis also highlights other areas for investment, including expanding refining capabilities for aluminium, copper, iron, and manganese, which are essential for final-stage battery production. To address these challenges, South Africa, Namibia and Zambia have been identified as potential manufacturing hubs due to their industrial capacity and access to raw materials. With strategic investments, Africa could establish a $8 billion EV battery export market, leveraging its mineral endowment to create high-value, sustainable industries.
ITC research is more than an academic exercise—it serves as a blueprint for Africa’s economic transformation. Through our data-driven insights, African policymakers can design targeted interventions and implement policies to connect the inputs, production capabilities and abundant human capital into productive and resilient regional value chains.
The next steps will be to translate the findings for the three strategic value chains into concrete trade and investment projects.
Strengthening local production capabilities, enhancing cross-border collaboration, and improving market access will be essential for realizing the full potential of the AfCFTA.
With the right policies, Africa can shift from being a supplier of raw materials towards the strategic development of value chains, ensuring that the products of tomorrow are truly ‘Made by Africa.’
