Why Africa has little appetite to reduce export of raw materials

The export of raw materials has been identified as one of the major causes of structural weaknesses in African economies for over the past decade. Expert have recommended value addition as the only viable way to reduce poverty, strengthen economic resilience, reduce unemployment and social inequality on the continent. Most African countries are highly dependent on raw material export, which they later import significantly expensive. The little foreign currency earned from raw material exports is later spent on expensive imports. Despite the vulnerabilities of these circumstances and the experts’ recommendation to developing processing industrial base to reduce excessive dependency on raw material exports and importing consumer goods, there has been little appetite effort to implement drastic changes.