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From African basement to electronic landfills, backwards of a globalised economy
Behind every product we consume is a long chain of decisions, flows and responsibilities.
From mines in Katanga to landfills in Accra, Africa lies at the heart of a system where it supplies raw materials from the world... and receives waste from them.
Can we still talk about "value" when one part of the world creates wealth and the other bears its ecological cost?
The value chain, an idea that has become a planetary system
The concept of value chain, popularized by Michael Porter, originally described the process by which a company transforms inputs (materials, energy, know-how) into wealth-creating products.
But in today's globalised world, this channel no longer stops at the company's borders: it crosses continents, peoples and destiny.
A simple smartphone illustrates this globalization: designed in the United States, assembled in China, powered by cobalt extracted in the Congo, then dumped or recycled in Ghana.
Each step adds economic value... but also a hidden cost, supported elsewhere.
The global value chain has become a network of interdependences where economic value and ecological value change in the opposite direction.
Upstream: Africa, supplier of the world
The African continent concentrates almost a third of the total Global strategic mineral resources : cobalt, gold, lithium, bauxite, oil, uranium.
But this natural wealth did not produce the expected development.
African countries continue to export their resources Grosswithout local transformation, leaving margins and value added to industrialized countries.
In the global chain:
- on Congolese cobalt power the batteries of European electric cars,
- on coltan enters into the manufacture of smartphones,
- on manganese and nickel supply steels to Asian industries.
In the meantime, local populations are subjected to:
- the ecosystem degradation,
- the soil and river pollution,
- and sometimes Social poverty in areas rich in minerals.
Up the global value chain is based on a paradox: Africa exports raw wealth and imports structural poverty.
Avalon: the planet Africa, a new dump of the world
The cycle doesn't stop there.
Once the products are consumed, The value chain downstream closes on the continent in the form of waste from the North.
Inverse flows are massive:
- of the Fast fashion clothes sold or used in the Accra, Dakar or Nairobi markets, ruining local textile industries;
- of the computers, phones, printers qualified as "second hand", but often unusable, shipped for "recycling" and finished burned open;
- of the used cars Europeans rejected from circuits because of pollution, but sold at low prices in Africa.
In sites like Agbogbloshie (Ghana), thousands of tons of electronic waste splinter and burn, releasing toxic vapours.
Lead, mercury, burnt plastics poison air and bodies. The loop is closed: the continent that supplies raw materials also receives scrap.
The value created on one side, the value destroyed on the other
This linear economy model produces an illusion: that of cheap wealth.
But behind the attractive price of a t-shirt, a phone or a computer, hidden costs are:
- of the irreversible pollution,
- of the contamination-related diseases,
- of the Shaved forests,
- and toxic wastes accumulated in the poorest areas of the world.
These costs are not included in the accounting balance sheets of companies: they are borne by local people, the states and the nature itself.
This is what economists call negative externalities.
The globalised economy creates visible value, but destroys an invisible value: that of the environment, living and human dignity.
The time of truth: internalizing the real cost of products
Can we continue to produce without counting?
Modern economists agree that the price of a product must integrate its actual environmental cost.
This is the principle ofinternalisation of externalitiesbased on the logic of polluter pays.
In other words:
"The sale price of a good must include the costs of its manufacture, but also the costs of its destruction. "
Many public policies are inspired by this:
- carbon tax or emission allowance market,
- eco-participation on electronic products,
- obligation to take over and recycle for manufacturers,
- extra-financial reporting (CSRD) on environmental and social impacts.
These devices reflect a new idea: the value chain must become a chain of responsibility.
Environmental cost: an investment in the future
Integrating environmental costs is not a barrier to competitiveness, but rather a barrier to competitiveness. strategic opportunity.
Companies investing in:
- the emission reductions,
- the traceability of their suppliers,
- the sustainable design of their products, build a decisive advantage in the medium term.
They gain consumer confidence, gain access to Green financing and secure their supply chains.
The value is no longer measured only in profit, but in resilience, sustainability and credibility.
For Africa: taking hold of its value chain
Africa can no longer be the backyard of globalization.
She must become a full actor the global value chain.
This implies:
- of the processing its raw materials locally,
- of the refuse imported waste under the pretext of "second life",
- of the developing its own recycling systems,
- and negotiating fair partnerships in the mining and industrial sectors.
The issue is not only economic, it is Political and Moral. Taking control of its value chain is also taking control of its destiny.
Towards a total value saving
The value chain of the 21st century must no longer be linear, but circular.
It must link creation, transformation, use, recycling and regeneration.
The value is no longer defined only by what it brings, but by what it preserves.
The company of tomorrow will be judged not on its quarterly profits, but on its global footprint :
economic, social and environmental.
True performance is the one that enriches without impoverishing the world.
Making value a common good
Making companies pay for their environmental impact is restoring a vital balance:
the one between man, economy and nature.
Africa, long relegated to the upstream and downstream of global chains, can turn this situation into a historic lever.
By requiring transparency, sustainability and fair value sharing,
it can become the moral engine of a reinvented economy, fairer, more conscious and more human.
The true wealth of a product is measured not by what it brings, but by what it brings savings to the planet.
