Value Sovereignty: A Framework for African Political Economy in the Multipolar

Title: Value Sovereignty: A Framework for African Political Economy in the Multipolar Era

Author: Getty Musiiwa (Researcher at Tete Getty Research Institute- TGRI)

 

Overview:

Existing theoretical models often evaluate African resource economies through external perspectives—as markets to liberalize, governance challenges to reform, or followers of foreign models. This working paper introduces Value Sovereignty, a original framework that places the national capture, control, and elevation of mineral value chains at the center of African political economy.

 

Core Propositions:

Value Capture as the Unit of Analysis: Focuses on a nation's concrete position and movement along mineral processing rungs.

  

Agency over Structural Fatalism: Asserts that ascending the value chain is an achievable policy outcome rather than a fixed global fate.

  

The Strategic Hedge as Method: Leverages multipolar competition (Eastern capital vs. Western finance) as a strategic mechanism to maximize retained domestic value.

  

Rootedness: Demands that economic gains, skills, and ownership remain grounded in local communities rather than coastal or foreign enclaves.

  

Case Study:

The framework is applied to the Sandawana mining lease in Zimbabwe, tracing its evolution from unrefined emerald exports in the 20th century to its 2026 certification of a 39.9 million-tonne lithium resource under an explicit national value-addition policy.

  

Keywords: Value Addition, Beneficiation, Resource Curse, Industrial Policy, Critical Minerals, Lithium, Multipolarity, Developmental State, Zimbabwe, African Political Economy.