- By harnessing DRC’s vast cobalt reserves and Zambia’s copper wealth, a new joint project aims to create jobs, cut emissions, and position Africa as epicenter of green mobility.
- The DRC-Zambia transboundary Special Economic Zone is set to produce nickel, manganese and cobalt battery precursors.
- A BloombergNEF study established that the project was technically feasible and financially viable, at a cost of $2.7Bn.
In a continent where competition and conflict often overshadows collaboration, two neighbouring nations are defying the odds—and history itself. The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Zambia, who share a border fraught with regional tensions, are joining forces in an audacious gamble: turning a potential conflict zone into the hub of Africa’s green energy push.
At first glance, the partnership seems improbable. Eastern DRC remains a flashpoint, with Rwanda-backed M23 rebels clashing with Kinshasa’s forces. Yet, just south of the turmoil, the two nations are pioneering a transboundary Special Economic Zone (SEZ) dedicated to battery and electric vehicle (EV) production—a bold bet that clean energy can do more than power cars; it might just power peace.
For the two nations, the stakes are monumental. If successful, this alliance could rewrite Africa’s economic playbook, replacing resource rivalry with shared prosperity. By harnessing the DRC’s vast cobalt reserves and Zambia’s copper wealth, the project aims to create jobs, curb emissions, and position the region as a hotbed of global green mobility. But the road ahead is fraught with risks—from instability to global market swings.
In a world racing toward decarbonization, DRC and Zambia are mining opportunity. And in doing so, they’re challenging the world to see Africa not as a victim of its past, but as a vital architect of its future.
On 15 April 2024, the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), Sub-Regional Office for Southern Africa (SRO-SA) and the Afreximbank in collaboration with the Ministry of Commerce, Trade and Industry organized a technical meeting to review the findings and recommendations of a prefeasibility study for implementation of a transboundary battery and electric vehicle industry SEZ in the DRC and Zambia.
The idea is working on two key fronts; first the end product/s and second it is poised to usher a new generation of SEZs focused on innovation, sustainability, value chain integration
The DRC-Zambia transboundary SEZ is set to produce nickel, manganese and cobalt (NMC) battery precursors, components that are an intermediate input to a complete battery, which the two countries seek to produce in the long run.
“Its competitiveness is promising. Building a cathode precursor plant in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is estimated to be three times cheaper than doing so in the United States of America,” a study by a study conducted by BloombergNEF shows.
It adds; “battery production in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is projected to emit 30 per cent fewer greenhouse gas emissions compared with production in China.”
This debate is set to take centre stage at the UNEC 14th Annual Investment Meeting’s Africa Regional Forum in Abu Dhabi, in April 2025.
“Zambia and DRC are home to at least 70 per cent of minerals required to actualise this vision,” explains Nalituba Mwale, Director for Administration in the Ministry of Commerce, Trade and Industry, Zambia.
She said the joint initiative aims to utilise the mineral complementarities to enable the two countries to unlock economic opportunities and strengthen the value chain to produce battery precursors and batteries for electric cars.
Adding onto this debate, Ms. Eunice Kamwendo, Director, UNECA Office for Southern Africa, said the BEV initiative “presents an immense opportunity for transforming regional economies and the entire continent through mineral-based development.”
According to UNECA, the ongoing global shift from internal combustion to electric vehicles will see “the battery electric vehicle market grow to US$8.8 trillion by next year [2025], and US$46 trillion by 2050 — a nearly six-fold increase in market value over the next 25 years.”
“The surge in demand for rechargeable batteries, driven by smartphone usage and renewable energy storage needs presents vast opportunities for Zambia and the continent to propel development anchored on the clean energy transition,” she explained.
She also cited recent data from S&P Global Market Intelligence on global exploration spending in 2023 and early 2024, which shows the rising dominance of lithium, nickel, copper and cobalt as target commodities in the budgets of many companies in direct response to the surge in the BEV sector.
DRC and Zambia special SEZ: A model for Africa?
The DRC-Zambia transboundary investment zone has great potential to bridge the existing industrial capacities on the continent, underscoring why this discussion will be a central focus for delegates at 14th Annual Investment Meeting (AIM) Congress 2025 in Abu Dhabi.
The agreement establishing the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) promises to slash trade costs across borders, where tariffs currently exceed 6 per cent and non-tariff barriers stand at 18 per cent.
If fully implemented, the agreement is projected to boost intra-African trade in intermediate goods and services by 51.7 per cent in industry, 49.6 per cent in agrifood, 40.4 per cent in services and 28.4 per cent in energy in 2045.
The press report ahead of the UNEC meet says these facts and numbers position Africa’s new SEZs in these sectors to capitalize on surging demand for intermediate goods with significant cost advantages when sourcing inputs from regional markets.
“They also promise profit margins for those supplying the growing African consumer market,” the report notes.
Further, the AfCFTA’s harmonized rules of origin set clear criteria, typically 30-50 per cent for the proportion of a product’s value that must be added within Africa to qualify for preferential tariffs.
A game-changing feature is the cumulation of origin, allowing businesses across Africa to collectively meet these thresholds through shared value addition.
For African SEZs, this reshapes the playing field entirely, strongly incentivising them to move beyond isolated export enclaves towards interconnected nodes that may service an African market.
The future of Africa’s BEV sector
The International Energy Agency projects that manufacturers of clean energy technologies will need 40 times more lithium, 25 times more graphite, and about 20 times more nickel and cobalt in 2040 than in 2020.
Currently, DRC has 51 per cent of the world’s cobalt reserves as well as huge hydroelectric power potential. The country is uniquely positioned to become a low-cost and low-emissions producer of lithium-ion battery precursor materials and cells, says an African Development Bank report titled ‘Strengthening Africa’s Role in the Battery and Electric Vehicle Value Chain’.
Further, DRC and Zambia are Africa’s largest producers of copper, an important component in wiring and motors.
A BloombergNEF study was commissioned to look into the feasibility of setting up SEZs to manufacture battery precursors in DRC and Zambia confirmed the project was technically feasible and financially viable, with an estimated total cost of $2.7 billion.
Mrs. Oluranti Doherty, Afreximbank’s Director for Export Development, said, “According to the BloombergNEF report, a precursor facility in the DRC would be three times cheaper than it would cost for a similar plant in the USA as a result of cost competitiveness and proximity to raw materials.”
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