Socio-economic development in Africa faces many obstacles, from the colonial legacy of privileged economic sectors to forms of government that are not suited to large and thinly populated territorial states. Western capital has mostly been interested in the extraction of resources such as oil and, more recently, rare earths.

Africapitalism is a development paradigm that suggests that domestic group-owned and community-based businesses, supported by sustainable finance, can play a crucial role in empowering rural and urban areas in African countries.

How realistic is this ethically motivated paradigm in an era of another industrial revolution driven by financial speculation?

Digitalization feeds on the exploitation of labor in the Global South, and its enormous energy demands are once again turning countries in Africa into primary suppliers of raw materials for electrification and energy storage. The massive financial interests in this transformation could mean a back to the future for capitalism in Africa.

To discuss the viability of Africapitalism, the European University in Florence invited two key witnesses, our program chairs Kenneth Amaeshi (Africapitalism), the leading proponent of the paradigm, and Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou (Futures of Capitalism), who sees financialized capitalism as inherently opposed to financial justice and social solidarity.