Economic intelligence: A strategic imperative for African economies

A Silent Battle Africa Can No Longer Ignore

The world no longer operates by yesterday’s rules. Behind the rhetoric of international cooperation, a stark reality is emerging: the global economy has become a strategic confrontation. States, multinational corporations, and regional blocs are all advancing their positions in a competition where information, technology, and anticipation make the difference.

In this game, Africa too often remains a spectator.

According to the International Monetary Fund, global growth is holding at around 3%, but this average conceals a profound reshaping of power dynamics. Industrial reshoring, energy sovereignty, and data wars are driving major powers to redesign global value chains in their favor.

Meanwhile, the African continent is still struggling to assert its place.

The African Paradox: Potential Power, Structural Weakness

The figures are striking. Africa accounts for less than 3% of global trade, according to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, despite holding nearly 30% of the world’s mineral resources.

This contradiction is not new. It reflects a historical integration into the global economy based on exporting raw materials and importing finished goods. In simple terms, the continent produces but does not transform. It sells but does not capture value.

The result: wealth is created elsewhere

Dependency: The Trap Holding Back Emergence

Each year, Africa spends between $75 billion and $85 billion on food imports, according to the African Development Bank. This dependency carries heavy consequences in a context of volatile global prices and geopolitical tensions.

Beyond food, the vulnerability is systemic: energy, manufactured goods, and technology. The continent remains exposed to external shocks, with limited capacity to absorb them.

In Senegal, as in many African countries, this translates into a structural trade deficit and persistent pressure on macroeconomic balances.

A Youth Waiting for Economic Transformation

Africa is young—decisively young. More than 60% of its population is under 25. Each year, nearly 20 million new entrants join the labor market, according to the International Labour Organization.

Yet this demographic vitality collides with an economy that generates too few formal jobs. Informality dominates, absorbing up to 85% of the workforce in some countries.

The risk is well known: growth without transformation, youth without prospects, and rising social pressure.

Industrialization: The Ever-Postponed Imperative

All paths to development lead to industrialization. Yet Africa remains on the margins of global manufacturing value chains, accounting for less than 2% of global industrial output.

The conclusion is clear: exporting raw materials without transformation means relinquishing the bulk of value creation. It also means exposure to volatile international commodity cycles, with little control over revenues.

Economic Intelligence: The Blind Spot of African Public Policy

Faced with these challenges, a critical question arises: why does Africa struggle to turn its potential into economic power?

Part of the answer lies in a deficit of strategic information management.

economic intelligence—widely embedded in advanced economies—remains marginal in African public policies. Yet in a data-driven world, the ability to collect, analyze, protect, and leverage information has become a decisive factor of competitiveness.

Anticipate, Protect, Influence: The Power Triptych

Economic intelligence is built on three core functions.

First, anticipation. In an unstable environment, strategic monitoring helps identify trends, detect disruptions, and position investments in future growth sectors.

Second, protection. Natural resources, economic data, and local innovations must be secured. Otherwise, value created domestically is captured externally.

Third, influence. Economic attractiveness is not accidental—it is constructed. Today, Africa attracts around $80 billion in foreign direct investment, far behind Asia. This gap also reflects a deficit in strategic positioning.

West and Central Africa: Conditions for a Strategic Shift

Across West and Central Africa, current economic dynamics are opening a historic window of opportunity. With abundant natural resources, expanding markets, and a global energy transition underway, the region holds real potential to accelerate its transformation.

Countries such as Senegal, Côte d’Ivoire, and Ghana in West Africa, and Gabon, Cameroon, and the Republic of the Congo in Central Africa combine relative stability, energy potential (oil, gas, hydropower), and strategic geographic positioning in global trade.

Yet this promise remains fragile.

Behind these strengths lie persistent structural vulnerabilities: dependence on commodities, weak regional integration, limited industrial transformation, and high exposure to external shocks.

In this context, the issue is no longer potential, but the capacity to build genuine regional economic power.

This is precisely where economic intelligence can play a decisive role.

Structuring economic intelligence policies at both national and regional levels means equipping governments with anticipation tools capable of capturing global shifts—from value chain reconfiguration to energy transition and digital transformation.

It also means better directing investments toward high-impact sectors: agro-industry, mineral processing, logistics, and the digital economy.

It means strengthening the competitiveness of local SMEs by giving them access to strategic information still largely controlled by multinational corporations.

Finally, it means securing economic interests in an increasingly aggressive global environment where power dynamics extend far beyond market mechanisms.In other words, West and Central Africa must move from fragmented and reactive economies to coordinated, strategic, and proactive ones.The shift will depend not only on available resources, but on the ability to organize information, anticipate change, and defend strategic interests in a world where economics has become a tool of power.

Taking Back the Initiative

Africa is not destined to remain on the margins. But to change its trajectory, it must break away from a fragmented and reactive approach to economic development. In a world where information has become a weapon, economic intelligence is no longer a luxury. It is a lever of sovereignty. The question is no longer whether African countries should embrace it, but how quickly they are ready to do so.