An electric vehicle at a charging station in Nairobi. [Wilberforce Okwiri, Standard] For decades, the direction of global industry has been set far from Africa. The continent is too often seen only as a supplier of the raw materials, cobalt, lithium, and manganese that power batteries, electric vehicles, and sustainable technologies developed and made elsewhere. Those resources rarely power Africa’s own industrial development. Instead, value-added manufacturing and its benefits flow elsewhere. However, the industrial landscape is shifting. One fifth of countries in the southern hemisphere, including my home country of Brazil, as well as African countries like Morocco, now generate…