PAMA Editorial: From Crisis to Coordination — Reclaiming Africa’s Industrial Future
In this PAMA Editorial: From Crisis to Coordination — Reclaiming Africa’s Industrial Future the Association highlights that across the pages of this edition, a single thread ties everything together: Africa can no longer afford to grow what it does not process, export what it should refine, or consume what it did not manufacture – Africa must break the cycle of growing, exporting, and importing its own future.
The Association argued that for too long, Africa has watched its resources leave its shores raw, only to return rebranded, repackaged, and resold at ten times the value. The global chocolate market, now worth over $130 billion, continues to boom.
Yet behind the sweetness lies a bitter truth: the very farmers who supply the bulk of the world’s cocoa remain trapped in poverty, burdened by low farmgate prices, aging trees, and rising production costs.
The unfolding cocoa crisis in West Africa — marked by crop failure, disease, and trade shocks — has exposed more than a supply shortfall. It has revealed the structural weakness of an economic model built on raw commodity exports.
This is no longer just economically unviable — it is morally indefensible. When profit soars in consumer capitals while hardship deepens in producer communities, the case for transformation becomes urgent and undeniable.
Africa must now reimagine its place in the global value chain. We must stop exporting beans and start exporting brands. We must shift from plantations to processing plants.
We must industrialise — or remain marginal. At the same time, PAMA’s successful high-level engagement at the 2025 Afreximbank Annual Meetings (AAM2025) and the signing of the strategic MoU with PAOSMI send a strong signal that coordinated, panAfrican industrial action is not only possible — it is already underway.
The collective resolve shown by governments, manufacturers, and institutions across the continent at the PAMA-AfBC side event during the AAM2025 proves that our industrial renaissance will not be driven by rhetoric, but by reform, resilience, and results. The geopolitical volatility in the Middle East and its impact on energy prices is yet another reminder that Africa’s industrial growth must be energy-secure, logistics-resilient, and inwardly anchored.
As global supply chains tighten, the urgency of building regional manufacturing ecosystems under the AfCFTA has never been greater. Finally, the tax reform in Nigeria is a commendable case of policy catching up with industrial reality.
Simplification, harmonisation, and relief for SMEs are essential if industrial players are to thrive in today’s complex business landscape. It is time for African manufacturers to lead, not wait. To build, not beg. And to trade, not just extract.
—The Editorial Board, PAMA Manufacturing Global News Bulletin