非洲贸易和投资促进全球复原力：世界银行2025年非洲增长与机遇行动研究（AGORA）会议上的马泰讲座（英）

African Trade and Investment for Global Resilience The Mattei Lecture at the World Bank’s 2025Africa Growth and Opportunity—Research in Action (AGORA) ConferencePublic Disclosure Authorized Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala Development Economics Vice PresidencyOffice of the Chief Economist and Senior Vice President Policy Research Working Paper11295 Abstract facilitation, to restore predictability and openness; and (ii)accelerating African reforms to implement the African Con-tinental Free Trade Area, reduce intra-African trade frictions,and attract efficiency-seeking foreign direct investment intomanufacturing, services, and “industries without smoke-stacks.” Leveraging Africa’s megatrends—demographicdynamism, rising middle classes, and mineral and arableendowments—and “green comparative advantage,” thepaper highlights opportunities to locate energy-intensive This paper, based on the Mattei Lecture that the author deliv-ered at the 2025 Africa Growth and Opportunity–Researchin Action Conference, argues that Africa can anchor anew model of growth—and bolster global resilience—byshifting from commodity dependence to value-added pro-duction and deeper integration into trade and investmentnetworks. Against a backdrop of strained multilateralismand falling foreign direct investment to developing econo-mies, global trade remains more robust than presumed, withgoods, services, and South-South flows expanding. Africa’sgoods exports are projected to grow rapidly, and digitally activities where renewable resources are abundant, clos-ing gaps in clean energy investment. Case studies—fromindustrial parks and automotive exports to fintech and The Policy Research Working Paper Series disseminates the findings of work in progress to encourage the exchange of ideas about developmentissues. An objective of the series is to get the findings out quickly, even if the presentations are less than fully polished. The papers carry thenames of the authors and should be cited accordingly. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely those African Trade and Investment for Global ResilienceThe Mattei Lecture at the World Bank’s 2025 Africa Growth and Opportunity–Research in Action (AGORA) Conference Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala Director-General of the World Trade Organization JEL Classification Codes: F13: Trade Policy, International Trade OrganizationsF15: Economic IntegrationF21: International Investment, Long-term Capital Movements Introduction Thank you to the Italian Ministry of Economics and Finance, the Banca d’Italia, and ofcourse to my former colleagues at the World Bank, especially Chief Economist Indermit Gill My message today is twofold: First, Africa has enormous but only partially realizedeconomic strengths in terms of demographics, material resources, and market size anddynamism. And second, successfully leveraging these strengths to build a new growth model It is about building global resilience in a world economy currently marked by some troublingoverdependencies: for example, on China for critical minerals, batteries, and other keysupplies; on Chinese Taipei for cutting-edge semiconductors; and on the United States formarket demand. Bringing Africa from the margins to the mainstream of more supplychains—part of what we call “re-globalization”—would help turn overdependence into In addition, for Europe and other regions with aging populations, commercial engagementwith Africa is about tapping into the growth and sustainability opportunities of the future.That is why the equitable partnership models you are trying to build here matter so much. The State of Trade and Investment:Risks and Resilience Let me start by addressing the wider global context for trade and investment, since that willaffect everything we discuss here. It is no secret the global trading system is facing thebiggest disruptions in 80 years. Open global markets enabled decades of trade-led growth inmany developing countries, and prior to that had supported Italy’s postwar economic miracle. Foreign direct investment into developing economies is falling, as the World Bank reportedin June. In 2023, FDI inflows were just 2.3 percent of GDP—half their peak level in 2008.This matters: FDI is a key driver of growth and job creation and a vital mechanism for thespread of new ideas and technology. Further financing pressures are coming from rising If we look more closely at the data, however, some positives begin to emerge. While theglobal trading system has been battered and bruised by US unilateral tariff actions, it has notbeen broken. Seventy-two percent of global goods trade continues to operate on core WTO Trade has been resilient. Our latest forecast shows global goods trade growing by 2.4 percentthis year, in volume terms, as countries other than the United States continue to trade witheach other on a mostly normal basis, while the AI investment boom boosts trade in tandem Services trade is set to grow 4.6 perc