“Development is not a gift from the outside; it is the outcome of a people’s own efforts“— Julius K. Nyerere
Africa’s quest for industrialisation did not begin recently with China, nor does it depend on China for its intellectual legitimacy. Even before Beijing emerged as a major development partner on the continent, African leaders had already conceived and articulated a clear, self-authored vision of structural transformation. That vision was first boldly expressed in the Lagos Plan of Action adopted in 1980, later refined in AU Agenda 2063, and most recently operationalised through the African Continental Free Trade Area, AfCFTA. Other subsidiary policies like the Programme for Infrastructure Development in Africa, PIDA; the Continental Power System Masterplan, CMP, etc, also remain relevant.
The central question confronting Africa today is therefore not whether China can industrialise the continent, but whether China can serve as an external agent and enabler of an African-owned industrial project, pursued on African terms, within African frameworks, and in line with African priorities. The Lagos Plan of Action was among the most intellectually confident policy documents produced by post-colonial Africa. It rejected the inherited colonial division of labour that confined Africa to the export of raw materials and the import of manufactured goods.
Instead, it emphasised industrialisation based on local processing and manufacturing, regional integration to overcome the limitations of small national markets, deliberate investment in infrastructure, science, technology and human capital, and a reduction in dependence on external actors and volatile commodity cycles. Above all, the Lagos Plan asserted African agency. It recognised that underdevelopment was optional and structural and that development required conscious political choices, including state coordination, industrial protection and long-term planning.
The failure of the Lagos Plan was not conceptual but political. Within a few short years, Africa’s development trajectory was redirected by the rise of Structural Adjustment Programmes, SAP, promoted by the Bretton Woods institutions in the 1980s. Industrial policy was discouraged, public enterprises dismantled, trade liberalisation accelerated and the role of the state sharply curtailed. The consequences were predictable and enduring: de-industrialisation, jobless growth, deepening import dependence and heightened vulnerability to external shocks.
Africa entered the twenty-first century on a weak footing. It still exported what it did not process and imported what it could have produced. It was against this background of lost decades that African leaders sought to reclaim their developmental narrative through the adoption of the AU Agenda 2063. Far from abandoning the Lagos vision, Agenda 2063 reaffirmed it in updated form. Its emphasis on industrialisation, infrastructure development, skills acquisition, science and technology, and regional integration echoed the core logic of the Lagos Plan.
Crucially, Agenda 2063 reiterated that Africa’s transformation must be internally driven, even while engaging external partners. Africa’s challenge, however, remained one of implementation rather than aspiration. AfCFTA represents the most concrete attempt yet to translate Africa’s long-standing industrial ambition into a workable mechanism. By creating a single continental market, AfCFTA directly addresses the small-market problem that undermined earlier industrial efforts. It provides the scale necessary for manufacturing, regional value chains and industrial clustering, and offers a platform through which Africa can negotiate more effectively with external partners.
In this sense, AfCFTA is not merely a trade agreement but a potential industrial strategy. It is within this African-authored continuum—from Lagos to Agenda 2063 to AfCFTA—that China’s role must be properly located. China did not invent Africa’s industrial dream, but its own development experience resonates strongly with Africa’s long-stated aspirations. China industrialised through strategic state intervention, protection of infant industries, massive infrastructure investment, leveraging of internal market size, skills accumulation and gradual integration into global markets on its own terms.
Ironically, these were precisely the policy choices African states were advised to abandon during the era of structural adjustment. This practical experience gives China credibility as a development partner, but credibility must not be mistaken for authorship. China’s engagement with Africa has been most visible in the area of infrastructure. Roads, railways, ports, power plants and industrial estates have expanded Africa’s physical capacity and connectivity. These investments are necessary foundations for industrialisation, but they are not sufficient on their own.
Infrastructure that is not deliberately linked to production and employment generation risks reinforcing import dependence rather than transforming economic structure. Recognising this limitation, China’s engagement has in recent years expanded into industrial parks, special economic zones, light manufacturing, agro-processing, vocational training and regional connectivity aligned with AfCFTA corridors. In principle, these areas align closely with Africa’s long-standing industrial agenda.
Yet alignment of interests does not automatically produce developmental outcomes. The decisive variable remains African agency. China can provide capital, technology, experience and access to markets, but it must not define Africa’s industrial priorities, dictate pathways or lock the continent into extractive roles that contradict its own plans. That would be a repeat of the much maligned SAP of the 1980s. The concept of China as an external enabler captures this distinction clearly. An enabler supports an existing vision; it does not replace it.
If China is to contribute meaningfully to Africa’s industrialisation, engagement must be governed by discipline on the African side. Infrastructure must be tied explicitly to industrial outcomes notably factories, jobs and exports. Industrial parks must serve regional value chains rather than remain isolated national enclaves. Skills transfer and technology absorption must be treated as core conditions, not optional additions.
Manufacturing relocation opportunities created by global supply-chain fragmentation must be actively pursued, not passively awaited. Above all, African industrialisation will stall without access to markets, including Chinese markets, for manufactured goods rather than raw materials alone. Equally important asre the boundaries Africa must draw.
Resource-based dependency, enclave-style projects with minimal spill-overs, and unsustainable debt that constrains policy space all contradict the spirit of the Lagos Plan, Agenda 2063 and AfCFTA.
These risks are not inherent in China’s presence; they arise from desultory negotiation, fragmented policy and poor governance. Africa’s greatest vulnerability lies not in external influence, but in internal incoherence and maladministration. AfCFTA offers Africa its strongest bargaining instrument. Negotiating with China through fragmented national approaches weakens outcomes, while alignment with continental frameworks strengthens leverage.
China respects scale, discipline, integrity, coordination, meeting of commitments and clarity of purpose. Africa must supply these attributes if it is to shape engagement in line with its own industrial objectives. The resuscitation of Africa’s industrial dream ultimately depends less on China’s intentions than on Africa’s strategic maturity and capabilities. The Lagos Plan of Action failed not because Africa lacked ideas, but because it lost control of implementation in a hostile global environment.
Today, the conditions are different. Africa has clearer frameworks, greater political awareness, a growing market, and a partner whose own development history validates industrial policy rather than undermines it. China cannot industrialise Africa. Only Africans can do that. But China can help enable what Africa has long sought—if Africa leads with clarity, confidence and coordination. The dream articulated in the Lagos Plan of Action more than four decades ago was never misplaced. It was merely deferred. In a changing global order, Africa now has an opportunity to reclaim it, not by outsourcing its future, but by engaging external partners, including China, as enablers of an African project whose time has come.
The post China, the Lagos Plan of Action, AU Agenda 2063 and AfCFTA: Resuscitating the Dream of African Industrialisation, by Usman Sarki appeared first on Vanguard News.
