Zainab Usman

I recently published a paper entitled, “How Can African Countries Participate in U.S. Clean Energy Supply Chains?“, on October 4, 2023 to be precise.

The paper examines the recent major pieces of U.S. climate-related legislation—the Bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, the Inflation Reduction Act, and the CHIPS and Science Act—and identifies three opportunities for African countries to integrate with U.S. clean energy industries. These are transition minerals supplies and battery manufacturing; research, development, and commercialization; and data collection and analytics. The paper concludes with recommendations for the U.S. government, African governments, and nongovernmental institutions from both sides of the Atlantic on how to advance this U.S.-Africa partnership.

Since the paper’s publication in October 2023, we have discussed our findings with U.S. and African policymakers in public and private meetings. The full paper is available here. The four-page summary is available here.

The paper has also received significant media coverage as follows:

• Mentioned in Semafor Africa’s newsletter, in a section entitled “An African Opportunity” for October 3, 2023.
• Covered in Foreign Policy’s the Africa Brief newsletter for October 11, 2023
• Mentioned in The Africa Report’s “10 key debates at next week’s AGOA summit in South Africa” for October 27, 2023
• Cited in Cipher News‘s “Africa’s critical minerals could play bigger role in U.S. energy transition” for November 8, 2023.
• Cited in The Economist‘s print and online article “China is winning Africa’s ‘white gold’ rush for lithium” for November 9, 2023.

I have also appeared on several podcasts to discuss some of the paper’s findings as follows:

• The Trade Guys at the Center for Strategic and International Studies podcast episode “U.S.-Africa Trade“

• The China Global South Project podcast episode “Africa is at the Center of U.S.-China Competition for Critical Resources”

• The Energy Exchange at Columbia University’s Center for Global Energy Policy, podcast episode “Africa’s Energy Transition”