From Extraction to Empowerment: A New Vision for Africa-Europe Cooperation

Near-Shoring for Shared Prosperity: A New Dawn in Africa-Europe Relations

By Mazi Onyeani Kalu

In a bold and visionary address at the European Parliament in Brussels, *Nigeria’s Deputy Speaker, Rt. Hon. Benjamin Okezie Kalu*, issued a compelling challenge to Europe, and indeed to the global economic order. Speaking at the prestigious European Union Visitor Program facilitated by the Pan-African Parliament, Kalu did not mince words:

“I propose to you the concept of near-shoring. We have the raw materials, you have the technology. Do not take our raw materials and return finished goods to us. Come and set up these processing plants where the raw materials can be found. If you do this, you don’t have to worry about migration of Africans to Europe. Stop spending billions on the symptoms when you can tackle the root causes once and for all.”

These are not mere words; they are a blueprint for mutual growth, dignity, and long-term stability.

Reimagining Partnership: From Extraction to Equity

For far too long, Africa has been the engine room of global production, digging, mining, and exporting its treasures for pennies, only to buy them back at a premium. From cocoa to cobalt, oil to lithium, the pattern of raw material extraction and finished goods importation has locked the continent in a cycle of dependency and underdevelopment. Kalu’s near-shoring proposition flips the script.

Near-shoring is not charity, it is strategic economic foresight. It recognizes that by investing in industrial infrastructure on African soil, European nations not only cut down their own costs and supply chain vulnerabilities, but they also unlock massive untapped value in Africa’s youthful population, vast lands, and natural wealth.

Addressing Migration by Investing in Hope

For decades, European leaders have scrambled to “solve” the issue of irregular migration from Africa, spending billions on fences, patrol boats, and diplomatic band-aids. But as Kalu rightly pointed out, “Stop spending billions on the symptoms when you can tackle the root causes once and for all.”

Jobs created in Africa are passports stamped with hope. Young people do not risk their lives on the Mediterranean because they love danger. They do it because poverty, unemployment, and hopelessness at home leave them with no viable alternative. Building value-added industries across Africa doesn’t just curb migration, it births a new generation of wealth creators, innovators, and global partners.

A Call to Action for Europe

Kalu’s message resonates with a growing sentiment across the Global South: Africa is not a victim to be pitied, but a partner to be respected. European nations, long reliant on African raw materials, now have a choice, continue with a 19th-century model of economic colonialism, or embrace a 21st-century model of co-creation and value-sharing.

The future is not in aid but in access. The answer is not in charity but in capital, channelled to where it makes the greatest impact.

Why Near-Shoring Makes Business Sense

Near-shoring to Africa isn’t just ethical, it’s smart. It reduces transportation costs, increases supply chain agility, and insulates manufacturers from geopolitical risks. Africa’s growing middle class offers a ripe market, and its workforce, vibrant, youthful, and increasingly educated, is a goldmine for innovation and productivity.

This is a win-win scenario*: Europe gets closer to its raw materials and consumer markets, while Africa gets the industries, jobs, and technical know-how it needs to leap into the future.

From Brussels to the World: A New Economic Frontier

Rt. Hon. Benjamin Kalu’s statement in Brussels must not remain a soundbite, it must spark a movement. Policymakers, investors, multinational corporations, and development agencies must heed this call. It is time to draw a new map of global production, one that routes prosperity through the continent that has given so much and received so little.

Let Africa not be remembered as the land of potential, but as the land of partnership. Let this be the generation where raw materials are not exported, but transformed at home, by Africans, for Africans, and with the world as our market.

This is the vision. This is the moment. And history will remember those who rose to meet it.

Mazi Onyeani Kalu

The GrandMaster,

Political Scientist | Promoter of Good Governance