The global race to diversify supply chains is creating one of Africa’s biggest industrial opportunities in decades, but only if governments move quickly to build competitive manufacturing ecosystems, World Trade Organization (WTO) Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala has said.
Speaking on Wednesday during a fireside chat with Central Bank of Nigeria Governor Yemi Cardoso at the Emerging Markets Forum in Abuja, Okonjo-Iweala said multinational companies are increasingly rethinking where they source and manufacture goods as geopolitical tensions expose the risks of relying too heavily on a handful of countries.
“The need now is to diversify supply chains and supply routes, not to be so concentrated,” she said, arguing that the shift presents a rare chance for African economies to integrate into global production networks.
Her remarks come as governments and businesses worldwide seek to reduce supply chain vulnerabilities exposed by the COVID-19 pandemic, geopolitical conflicts and rising trade tensions.
While “reshoring” and “friend-shoring” initially dominated the conversation, the focus has increasingly shifted toward building more diversified and resilient global supply chains rather than concentrating production in a few locations.
