Because they failed to maintain or invest in a regular grid. Off-grid, battery-backed is far more expensive than generator-backed at scale… at least for now. And you still need generators for poor weather.
https://ourworldindata.org/battery-price-decline
https://developmentreimagined.com/infographic-exploring-afri...
https://app.electricitymaps.com/map/72h/hourly (center map on Africa)
Africa is leapfrogging legacy electrical infra models, and likely has no need for the legacy model of centralized generation and long haul transmission to load centers.
(the battery costs in the Our World in Data citation are already out of date, and as of 2023, the average global price of batteries was $95/kWh, see https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2024-07-09/china-... | https://archive.today/DklaA for more)
It's not too different to how developing counties rolled out wireless Internet and gained a huge benefit without much infrastructure investment.
I was buying a 15ft strand and it was $18.
It's probably worth even less if you have to resell wire to recycling businesses of the "no questions about where you got it" variety. Are these wire rolls large enough to contain a thousand pounds of copper?
I can't speak to why there historically hasn't been as much manufacturing in Africa—I'm guessing it's just cheaper to colocate with others for lower costs across the board?
Regardless, (neo)colonialism does dominate both regions—it's a hard state to avoid if you want to interact with a global economy at a deep financial disadvantage.
Most of South East Asia has developmental indicators comparable to most of Sub Saharan Africa. Sub Saharan Africa has plenty of basket cases (DRC, CAR, Mozambique), but it also has plenty of countries on the same general trajectory as South East Asian countries (Kenya, Nigeria, Uganda, Tanzania, Senegal). "Africa" and "Asia" is broad and it's dumb ti compare the two.
> se asia has capital flowing through it at a far higher volume, mostly because of manufacturing
Not exactly. Much of South East Asia has strong capital market integrations with Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan, and South Korea which makes it easier for liquid capital to flow.
African nations that have integrated their capital markets with foreign markets open to taking risks in LDCs (UAE, China, India) have seen a leapfrogging in economic capabilities. You see this with Ethiopia, Nigeria, Kenya, and Uganda.
> se asia
What do you mean by SEA? And what do you mean by East Asia?
Africa GDP Per Capita (2023)
Kenya: 1,952.30 USD
Nigeria: 1,596.64 USD
Uganda: 1,002.31 USD
Tanzania: 1,224.49 USD
Senegal: 1,706.44 USD
South East Asia GDP Per Capita (2023)
Brunei: 32,962.91 USD
Myanmar: 1,233.20 USD
Cambodia: 2,429.75 USD
Timor-Leste: 1,502.52 USD
Indonesia: 4,8976.31 USD
Laos: 2,066.95 USD
Malaysia: 11,379.09 USD
The Philippines: 3,804.87 USD
Singapore: 84,734.26 USD
Thailand: 7,182.03 USD
Vietnam: 4,282.09 USD
Africa HDI (2022)
Kenya: 0.601
Nigeria: 0.548
Uganda: 0.550
Tanzania: 0.532
Senegal: 0.517
South East Asia HDI (2022)
Brunei: 0.823
Myanmar: 0.608
Cambodia: 0.6
Timor-Leste: 0.566
Indonesia: 0.713
Laos: 0.620
Malaysia: 0.807
The Philippines: 0.710
Singapore: 0.949
Thailand: 0.803
Vietnam: 0.726
Africa Under-Five Mortality (2020, Estimates):
Kenya: 29.8
Nigeria: 59.8
Uganda: 32.6
Tanzania: 36.4
Senegal: 45.7
South East Asia Under-Five Mortality Rates (2020, Estimates):
Brunei: 8.8
Myanmar: 31.7
Cambodia: 43.7
Timor-Leste: 31.7
Indonesia: 20.4
Laos: 45.6
Malaysia: 11.4
The Philippines: 20.0
Singapore: 2.3
Thailand: 8.6
Vietnam: 15.7
Japan was a first world country, an economic success before WWII, and then had the US occupation after the war to rebuild it economically and politically as a hedge against future Japanese threats and against Russia and China.
South Korea never suffered Western colonialism (?) but did suffer under Japan. After that and the Korean War, iirc it was one of the poorest places on Earth. Now they are among the wealthiest and most free, maybe the greatest such accomplishment ever. They also benefitted from direct US support, as a counter-balance to the neighboring communist states.
Taiwan has direct US support to contain the communist regime in mainland China, first as a right-wing authoritarian dictatorship and then as a democracy.
China suffered 50-150 years of Western colonialsm, depending on how you measure it (the UK still controlled Hong Kong until the late 1990s). They were very poor into the 1990s. Then, opening their economy to investment (a project begun in the late 1970s), and with major manufacturing economies as neighbors (Japan, Taiwan, S Korea, etc.), they became the center of global manufacturing and trade and reaped the financial benefits.
By comparison, how will African countries attract investment? They are geopolitically located in a place that matters, and are not the global center of population nor many of the other Chinese advantages such as a massive single market that complied with Western requirements, proximity to wealthy neighbors such as Japan, Taiwan, etc.
Also, Africa doesn't have the geopoitical importance, an accident of geography but a reality. Unless and until world power changes dramatically to Africa from the US, Europe, and East Asia, it doesn't seem like that will change.
That doesn't mean they can't grow wealthier, etc. But compared to East Asian countries, they lack the means to compel investment
I meant, 'they are not geopolitically located in a place that matters'. Oops.