Africa's Economic Future Hinges on Adapting to a Changed World

A prolonged disruption of shipping through the Strait of Hormuz has exposed how vulnerable Africa's economies remain to geopolitical shocks, according to reporting by AllAfrica and Daily News. Fuel prices have stayed elevated as a result, squeezing the budgets of nations that depend heavily on petroleum imports from the Middle East, including Ethiopia, Kenya, Mozambique, South Africa, Tanzania and Uganda.

This fragility complicates a long-standing goal: moving workers from subsistence farming into higher-productivity sectors like manufacturing and modern services, a process economists call structural transformation. AllAfrica reports that Africa never fully rode the export-manufacturing wave that lifted East Asia from the 1960s onward. Now, the rules of the game have changed, with geopolitical rivalry, fragmented supply chains and artificial intelligence making the path to industrialisation even harder to navigate.

The End of the Old Playbook

Countries such as Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, China and Vietnam all industrialised by expanding exports of labour-intensive goods like garments, footwear, furniture and electronics. These industries created jobs and built up skills, but they depended on a relatively stable global trading system, according to AllAfrica. Trade barriers were falling, demand was growing, and the rules were predictable, allowing governments to focus on becoming competitive within a familiar framework.