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© 2017 The African Capacity Building Foundation
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Produced by the Knowledge and Learning Department
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First printing September 2017

Intangible Capital in Global Value Chains

Posted By Leonce Ndikumana [1]

The growth surge observed in Africa before the global financial crisis (about 6 percent real GDP growth rate during 2001-2008) and its resilience during the crisis (2.8 percent growth) continue to nurture optimism with regard to the continent’s future economic prospects. These developments feed hopes that ‘Yes, Africa can’ [2][1] [3] win the war against poverty, hunger, and deprivation.

Stanley Kwenda

KINSHASA, Sep 11 (IPS) – The global economic crisis has hit the African continent especially hard despite not being involved in its making, civil society organisations gathered in the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo heard at the fifth people’s summit of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) in the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

A review of what is happening in copper supply suggests that losses in output through closures and project abandonments may be sufficient to turn the market round quicker than many analysts would seem to contemplate.

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In the late 1990s and early 2000s, a curious export phenomenon occurred in the countries of Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi. In spite of the fact that none of these countries had major domestic mining operations, their exports of copper, gold, diamonds and coltan jumped drastically. Not coincidentally, these were the exact same minerals found in abundance in the neighboring Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), and the jump in mineral exports coincided perfectly with the invasion of DRC by these three countries. While each country justified its invasion based on security concerns, the United Nations found that the battlefields were most commonly centered around areas that held large stocks of valuable minerals.