By Dr Ehizuelen Michael Mitchell Omoruyi,associate professor and the executive director of the Center for Nigerian Studies at the Institute of African Studies at Zhejiang Normal University

Source:https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202609/20/WS6ab02525e4b06d4aa055f18a.html

Africa can build productive capacity through renewable energy cooperation with China

This year marks the fifth anniversary of the launch of the Global Development Initiative, proposed by Chinese President Xi Jinping in 2021, and the first anniversary of the Global Governance Initiative, proposed in September 2025.

The anniversaries matter. Energy provides one of the clearest tests. Development cannot be inclusive without affordable and reliable electricity; global governance cannot be equitable if countries possessing some of the world's greatest renewable energy resources remain marginal to the financing, technologies, manufacturing and rule-making driving the energy transition.

Africa captures that contradiction starkly. The Trade and Development Foresights 2026, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development's latest update on the global economic outlook, estimates that the continent possesses around 60 percent of the world's best solar resources but received only 2 percent of global clean energy investment in 2024.

The gap, therefore, is not primarily one of natural resources. It is a gap between energy potential and development capability. China's own transition makes its role increasingly important. According to the National Energy Administration, by the end of July, China's installed photovoltaic power capacity has reached 1.286 billion kilowatts, surpassing the coal-fueled power installed capacity for the first time. China has also developed a highly competitive photovoltaic industrial chain, with Chinese manufacturers accounting for roughly 80 percent of global solar module output.

These achievements matter beyond China because scale has helped change the economics of renewable energy. But China-Africa cooperation should not be measured principally by how much Chinese equipment Africa imports. The more consequential question is whether China's technological and manufacturing capabilities can be connected to Africa's renewable resources in ways that build African productive capacity.

Earlier phases of China-Africa energy cooperation were heavily project-oriented, spanning hydropower, transmission and conventional electricity generation. The model can gradually shift toward renewables. The emerging opportunity is to move further from financing energy projects to building green industrial ecosystems. South Africa illustrates the possibility. The Chinese-financed and operated De Aar Wind Farm supplies approximately 760 million kilowatt-hours of clean electricity annually, while wider cooperation can encompass transmission, battery storage, equipment manufacturing, hydrogen, technology transfer and industrial development.

A solar farm can generate electricity. A solar industrial ecosystem can generate electricity and engineers, technicians, component manufacturers, suppliers, research capabilities, exports and employment. A battery-storage project can stabilize a grid; a battery value chain can additionally connect African mineral resources to processing, manufacturing and technological learning.

The distinction is between installing capacity and accumulating capability. Africa needs both. The first addresses today's electricity deficit; the second determines whether solving that deficit also changes tomorrow's economic structure.

This is where the Global Development Initiative's development logic becomes relevant. Five years after its launch, success can increasingly be judged not simply by projects delivered but also by their development multipliers. Energy cooperation can connect electrification with industrialization, skills, agricultural processing, digital connectivity and regional trade. The question should move from "How many megawatts were installed?" to "What new productive capabilities did those megawatts make possible?"

There are encouraging signs. In June, the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) and China completed a two-week training program on solar energy application technologies involving participants from nine African countries. Such events matter because they can help address a fundamental ingredient of sustainable development: the capacity to operate, adapt, improve and eventually produce technology locally.

Finance remains a harder constraint. UNCTAD reports that Africa attracted approximately $70 billion in foreign direct investment in 2025, with energy, infrastructure and natural resources attracting substantial interest. Yet investment remains concentrated in some economies and industries.

Africa therefore does not merely need more green finance. It needs a better conversion mechanism between finance and development. Investment should encourage, where feasible, local sourcing, supplier development, workforce training and technology partnerships. Based on different development needs and national conditions, African governments can develop credible regulation, bankable projects, stronger utilities, transmission infrastructure and industrial policies capable of converting investment into domestic capabilities.

This changes the policy question from "How much investment entered Africa?" to "How much productive capacity grew out of Africa after the investment arrived?" That is a harder metric, but a far better measure of structural transformation.

This is where the first anniversary of the Global Governance Initiative becomes particularly relevant. For Africa, the meaningful measure of equitable green governance will not be merely about diplomatic endorsement. It will be whether African countries participate as rule-shapers rather than rule-takers in the global energy transition.

Critical minerals provide an important test. Africa possesses resources essential to batteries, electric mobility and renewable technologies. Yet exporting unprocessed minerals without empowering local capability would hardly further advance cooperation.

Africa's objective should therefore be not simply participation in green supply chains, but movement into progressively higher-value segments of them. That requires greater African participation in mineral processing, manufacturing, technological development and clean energy value chains while maintaining environmental and social standards.

The same principle can apply internationally. If climate governance imposes transition costs on poorer countries without adequate financing, technology and policy space, the green transition risks widening the inequalities sustainable development is intended to reduce.

This is where the Global Development Initiative and the Global Governance Initiative reinforce each other. Development without more inclusive governance can leave poorer countries implementing rules they had limited influence in designing. Governance reform without tangible development outcomes risks remaining diplomatic rhetoric. Energy cooperation can connect the two: it can turn questions of representation, finance and technology into electricity, factories, skills, jobs and livelihoods.

Regional integration can multiply those gains. Fragmented national electricity systems constrain investment and reliability, while stronger regional power pools and cross-border transmission can create markets large enough to support manufacturing.

That opens a potentially transformative frontier for China-Africa cooperation from individual power projects to integrated green development corridors linking renewable generation, transmission, industrial parks, transport networks, digital infrastructure and regional markets.

The African Continental Free Trade Area can provide the market architecture around those corridors. Rather than every African country attempting to manufacture every component domestically, regional value chains could allow economies to specialize in mineral processing, components, assembly, engineering services and renewable generation. The objective can be African value creation at continental scale, not narrow localization within every national border. Africa's pathway will differ from that of China. African countries have different resources, fiscal capacities, industrial structures and development priorities. Cooperation should therefore not mean copying China's transition model. It should mean combining Chinese capabilities with African strategies and African conditions.