At Kortrijk station, I could wait another thirty-five minutes for the direct train to Ostend or take the one pulling in and change at Ghent. I took the connection. I had just said goodbye to the business delegates I had accompanied to a technology and innovation expo. Once aboard, I opened a study on industrialisation in Zambia and Southern Africa. It brought me back to a question we had discussed at the Nigeria Belgium Luxembourg Business Forum. What would it take to build factories that can compete?
I had written and spoken after the forum that a processing mandate could do little on its own to secure reliable power, finance machinery or find buyers. The study took that argument across borders. If the power, inputs, skills and markets an industry needs are spread across several countries, why should each try to build the whole chain at home? What would it take for our diplomats to help put those pieces together?
The conversations I miss
There was a time when African diplomats covering political affairs in Belgium, including some heads of mission, would call to ask what was driving a political debate here and what lessons might be worth sending back to their capitals. My years in local government in Ostend and being the lead on international development for my caucus as well as in diaspora leadership, gave me a view from inside Belgian public life. They, in turn, helped me understand what was shaping events in their own capitals. Their questions often made me reconsider my reading. Those exchanges still happen occasionally, and I still send research and opinion pieces when I think they may be useful. What I miss is the initiative behind those calls, when a mission had a question it wanted answered and knew whom to ask.
I have seen something similar in economic diplomacy. In my work with the Business Forum, engagement from some African embassies has been limited. When a prospective investor and an African business identify a serious opportunity, the organisers should know who at the embassy can assess it, where it should go next and who will follow up. Nigeria’s 4D foreign policy gives diaspora engagement a place alongside demography, development, and democracy. A mission’s handling of a promising lead is one way to see that commitment at work.
What missions should ask for
What does an officer inherit on arrival? Ideally, a brief on the host country, a handover of working relationships and a list of live projects. Headquarters can reinforce that handover through training and by asking officers what happened to the leads they pursued. Kenya’s pre-deployment training covers economic diplomacy and diaspora engagement. I would build on that approach with practical exercises. Ask officers to brief headquarters on a political development, assess an investor, or set out the next step on a cross-border project before they take up a posting. Ethiopia’s diaspora investment support service gives prospective investors a point of entry. The Global Jamaica Diaspora Council gives Jamaica a standing channel for collaboration across sectors. These arrangements show what can be built into the way governments work with their diasporas. For Nigeria, I would go one step further. Missions should approach the diaspora with specific requests. Ask for an introduction to a buyer, help finding a standards expert or an engineering partner, or an assessment of a prospective investor.
The same habit belongs in political reporting. Ask someone with experience of Belgian politics how a coalition agreement works in practice. Ask a researcher which parts of a Belgian policy could work in Nigeria and which depend on local institutions. Then test those insights against other sources.
A test for regional industrial diplomacy
Preliminary analysis presented at the UN Economic Commission for Africa’s November workshops estimated that existing African suppliers could potentially serve about $1.15 billion of the $6.1 billion in insulated cables African countries bought from outside the continent in 2024. The estimate, based on trade data, gives a commercial officer somewhere to start. Find a buyer and ask whether an African supplier can meet its specifications and delivery terms. Identify any obstacle, whether it is certification, working capital, transport costs, or the price of the cable itself. A mission can then bring in the people with the authority or expertise to act.
That work needs backing from home. National governments must prepare credible projects, consult affected communities, and name officials who can act on referrals from missions. Regional bodies such as the Southern African Development Community can bring governments together to agree how they will secure power, move goods, and share the benefits. The African Union’s Green Minerals Strategy sets the direction. The African Continental Free Trade Area gives governments a framework for making cross-border production commercially viable. A country that supplies inputs or engineering services needs a credible stake in the project, wherever the main plant is built.
When African missions strike discordant notes, the disagreement often begins in capitals. Governments can choose different partners and still agree on what a shared project needs and what terms they will take into negotiations. When they negotiate separately, external partners can shop among competing national offers while African neighbours bid against one another for the same plant. A wider choice of partners pays off when governments know which parts of the industry they can build together.
On the train home from Kortrijk, I thought about the diplomats I have known who knew whom to call and what to ask, whether they were making sense of a political development or opening a door for a business. There is a straightforward test of that habit today. If our missions struggle to connect an African cable maker with an African buyer, how will they negotiate the terms of an entire regional minerals value chain with the world’s strongest industrial powers?
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