Africa must move from participation to positioning

April 9, 2026

Africa risks being left on the margins of a rapidly shifting global economic order unless it makes a deliberate move from passive participation to strategic value capture, which was the central message delivered by a leading African policy voice at a high-level forum in Singapore.

Paul Frimpong, Executive Director of the Africa–China Centre for Policy & Advisory (ACCPA), made the intervention at a roundtable hosted by the East Asian Institute at the National University of Singapore, convened under the theme “Global Supply Chain Shift and Potential New Shipping Routes.” The gathering drew researchers, policy experts, and industry stakeholders to examine how geopolitical tensions and evolving trade patterns are reshaping global production systems.

A man in a suit speaks at a conference table, engaging with an audience, while holding a microphone.

Speaking on the panel focused on supply chain shifts to the Global South, Frimpong was direct in his assessment of where Africa currently stands. Despite growing visibility in global production networks, with emerging manufacturing hubs in Ethiopia, Kenya, and Ghana, the continent’s role remains largely confined to low-value activities such as commodity exports, basic processing, and assembly-level manufacturing. Control over higher-value functions like design, technology integration, and supply chain coordination, he argued, continues to elude most African economies.

“Africa is present in global supply chains but not yet positioned to capture value at scale,” he noted.

Frimpong also turned attention to China’s evolving industrial posture, warning that as Beijing upgrades its domestic manufacturing base and relocates lower-tier production to regions across the Global South, the process is structured and selective, with high-value activities largely retained. This, he cautioned, raises serious questions about the depth and long-term sustainability of Africa’s integration into global value chains.

A group of professionals seated around a conference table during a meeting, with one man speaking and gesturing. Various laptops and notes are visible, and there is a window with a city view in the background.

To chart a more strategic course, Frimpong outlined key priorities for African policymakers: targeted value chain development, stronger alignment between foreign investment and domestic industrial capacity, and faster progress on regional integration through the African Continental Free Trade Area as a foundation for building cross-border production ecosystems.

His broader argument was that Africa’s competitiveness in the emerging global order will not be won on cost advantages alone, but on the quality of its policy coordination, infrastructure, and institutional frameworks.

ACCPA’s presence at the Singapore roundtable reflects its expanding role as a policy think tank at the crossroads of Africa-China relations and global economic strategy, and its stated commitment to shaping conversations that cast Africa not merely as a bystander, but as a deliberate player in the world economy.