For those in Africa, the process of adding value locally to what few raw materials one has in a small country only seems logical. To many in the older generation who were trained 30 years ago in economics, beneficiation has been seen rather as a holy grail. If you look at the SADC industrial policy framework beneficiation of raw materials is a central plank of economic and industrial policy throughout the entire southern African region.
So why are institutions such as the World Bank and even researchers at what is supposed to be Africa’s bank, the African Development Bank so adamant about not bothering to beneficiate our raw materials and continuing to export raw unprocessed materials? Some of the reasons offered are valid, others make far less sense. The most valid ones is that beneficiation to the next stage of a raw material such as copper or nickel is often very capital intensive and usually does not create that many jobs and therefore it is no panacea for Africa’s many problems that hold back investment. This is certainly true of copper in Zambia or zinc in Namibia or even diamonds in Botswana - these have hardly been sectors that have been the sources of major employment generation. They tend to create a few, sometimes even a few thousand, relatively good well paid jobs and then there is no more growth because the sector does not go add more value. Government’s obvious reply is that when you are faced with the option of the market place producing very few good jobs at all then beneficiation looks pretty good to policy makers.
