Africa’s importance to global supplies of critical minerals gives its governments an opportunity to negotiate for research infrastructure, scientific expertise and domestic industry rather than continue exporting raw materials with little local processing, according to a senior South African science diplomat.
Eudy Mabuza, minister counselor for science and innovation at the South African Mission in Brussels, said international competition for minerals needed for clean energy and emerging technologies had given African countries bargaining power that could support longer-term scientific development.
“Africa can—we just need to be very strategic and to use our bargaining power to be able to achieve this,” Mabuza said in an interview with The Science Diplomat Podcast.
Mabuza has spent 20 years in South Africa’s science department, working with international partners in Europe, the Americas and Asia. She spent five and a half years in Tokyo building scientific relationships between South Africa and Japan and now manages South Africa’s research cooperation with the European Union and its member nations.
Her argument links science diplomacy to a longstanding economic question: whether African countries can move beyond supplying raw materials to acquire more of the research, processing and manufacturing capacity built around them.
Countries including Zambia, Zimbabwe, Namibia and Congo could host research facilities connected to minerals in which they have particular strengths, Mabuza said. Such facilities could attract scientists from Africa, Europe and elsewhere while training researchers, engineers and technicians locally.
She cited the Square Kilometre Array Observatory in South Africa as an example of major scientific infrastructure capable of drawing international researchers to the continent.
“If we don’t bring the science and we don’t bring the research infrastructures now,” Mabuza said, “it’s likely that we will miss this boat and it’s going to be business as usual.”
That would mean continued extraction of African raw materials without enough of the processing, research or industrial development needed to produce greater economic benefits within the continent.
Mabuza said African governments would need to contribute their own priorities and financing while requiring companies and foreign governments seeking access to minerals to invest in research capacity.
Science infrastructure requires long-term commitments and may not produce immediate returns. But laboratories and major facilities can develop human capital, support industries and create work for scientists, engineers and skilled trades extending beyond the original research project.
The need for domestic investment remains substantial. African governments have repeatedly committed to spending 1% of gross domestic product on research and development, but actual spending remains far below that level in much of the continent.
Mabuza said African governments bear considerable responsibility for the gap. Parliamentarians determining national budgets may have little understanding of how scientific investment connects to economic and social development. Dependence on international financing can also allow foreign funders to influence national priorities.
“When you are dependent on another person’s budget, a lot of the time your budget is dictated by the funder,” she said.
South Africa itself has struggled for two decades to reach its target of spending 1% of GDP on research and development, she said. The government is reviewing its science, technology and innovation financing and seeking greater private-sector investment.
Similar questions are shaping South Africa’s negotiations with Europe over green hydrogen. European governments are looking to African countries as potential suppliers as they seek to decarbonize their economies and reduce reliance on fossil fuels.
Mabuza said a partnership based principally on producing hydrogen in South Africa for export to Europe would be inadequate.
“A successful partnership would look like when both parties win, not just one party,” she said.
South Africa wants hydrogen development to support domestic decarbonization, create industries, attract investment and help workers move from carbon-intensive sectors into new employment. It also wants hydrogen retained for domestic use rather than exported in its entirety.
The negotiations are intertwined with the European Union’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism, which imposes carbon-related costs on imports of products including steel, cement and fertilizers. Those measures increase pressure on South African industries to reduce emissions while also affecting important exports to Europe.
“You can have the green molecule on condition that you domesticate and you leave some of it for our usage,” Mabuza said of South Africa’s position.
For her, the episode demonstrates that science diplomacy is not limited to building bridges or facilitating cooperation. It can also help a country resist terms it considers inequitable and negotiate for a different outcome.
Mabuza pointed to a three-year initiative intended to help historically disadvantaged South African universities compete for European research funding. The program would connect them with South African institutions experienced in Horizon Europe and provide training in grant writing, intellectual property, technology transfer and the creation of research partnerships.
Her experience in Japan offered another lesson for European partners: durable scientific relationships take time.
“Patience,” she said when asked what Europe could learn from Japan. The hydrogen relationships she helped establish during five and a half years in Tokyo produced two funded projects that continued after her departure and moved toward commercialization.
“We don’t rush things, and we thoroughly work on this trust building in order to understand both sides,” she said.
Mabuza ultimately measures science diplomacy less by agreements or meetings than by what happens to the researchers involved. Success, she said, can begin with a student from a rural community receiving a scholarship, completing advanced study abroad and returning with international relationships that support research at home.
“People get jobs, people get upskilled, people are able to pull their struggling families out of poverty into a better livelihood,” she said. “That’s the success in terms of the work that one does that we bring home.”
S1E10: Eudy Mabuza on African science diplomacy, research infrastructure and equitable partnerships
Season 1, Episode 10 — Eudy Mabuza on science diplomacy, global power and the future of scientific cooperation