Dwayne Fields: “At the screening of Lobito Bound, I had a discussion with a woman afterwards and she said we should stop mining. I think we should stop mining in Africa. And I said, well, hold on a second. Let me let me push back. I said, do you have a phone? She said, yes. i said, well, I guarantee you something in that phone comes from Africa. If we stop mining, we stop our way of life. ”
Claude: Hi, I’m Claude Grunitzky. Welcome to Limitless Africa. This week, we’re looking at Lobito Bound. It’s a documentary that looks at the Lobito Corridor. That’s the major railway that links the Atlantic port of Lobito, which is in Angola, to the Democratic Republic of Congo and Zambia’s Copper Belt.
Claude : I’m so pleased to welcome explorer and documentary presenter Dwayne Fields, as well as Sam Williams.
Claude : First of all, gentlemen, please introduce yourselves.
Sam Williams: Well, thank you very much, Claude. It’s a real privilege to be speaking on the Limitless Africa podcast. My name is Sam Williams. As you said, I work for AfroCell. It’s a telco in, among other countries, Angola and DRC. I’m head of communications. And we’re very pleased worked with Dwayne.
Claude: Dwayne, you get into it now.
Dwayne: So, well, Claude, thank you for having me. I’m a simple man. I was born in Jamaica, a tiny part of the island of Jamaica. And I’ve grown up in the UK, living in London most of my life. I was lucky enough that as an adult I went back to something that we all do as children. We all explore the world around us . But I was lucky enough to rediscover that inquisitive side of me later in life. um I found myself walking to the North Pole back in 2010. Since then, I’ve traveled the world, living a life of adventure. And it’s taken me to every corner of the planet.
Claude: What’s your personal connection to this specific Lobito project?
Dawyne: I’m glad you asked. A few years ago, Claude, I did a DNA test just like so many other people do. And mine actually took me on a journey. So it wasn’t a geographical one. Mine was a genetic one. It took me back to the copper belt itself because a lot of my DNA, when you look on the map, actually spans the Copperbelt region. um So when Afrocell came to me and said, hey, we’re looking to do a documentary about the Copperbelt region, the Lobito corridor. I thought to myself, I can’t give up this opportunity to go back to a place where my ancestors might have been from, could have stood on the very ground that I was on. Just to give you a quick stat, 70% of all the world’s copper and rare earths are found or held in China. 15% of everything that’s left, so half of everything that’s left comes right out of Africa.
We’re all touched by what happens right there in Africa, and I think it’s important that we start talking about it and start spreading the story.
Claude : Now, we’ve been talking about rare earth minerals on this podcast, but we can’t assume that every single one of our listeners knows what the Lobito corridor is. So Sam, let me ask you, what is the Lobito corridor?
Sam : At its simplest, Claude, the Lobito Corridor is a rail connection between the Copperbelt region, which spans southern DRC, so the provinces of Katanga and Lualaba, and the northernmost province of Zambia, which is coincidentally called Copperbelt province. It’s a railway that connects that part of the world with the Angolan port of Lubito. And it has existed as a railway since at least 1929.
Now fast forward a century. and we are seeing a revival of interest and renewed investment in that very same railway because the question of copper who owns it who controls it who who gets to who gets to exploit it who benefits from it has become acutely relevant with the the ever-growing role of copper in the modern global digital economy. And it’s interesting, or one of the reasons it’s interesting, because it has been identified by the US as a possible way to sort of fill the gap in its Africa strategy.
So the Trump administration has almost uniquely among foreign policies it has adopted the Lobito corridor as a strategic priority because the underlying story is too compelling for the Trump administration to ignore. It gives the u.s privileged access to the minerals of the copper belt which are essential in its long-term global geopolitical competition with among others.
Claude:
Who’s got a stake in the Lobito corridor?
Sam: It’s very much a collaboration. So if you contrast the Lobito Corridor with the Tazara Railway, the Tazara was built by China And to this day, its funding comes largely from the Chinese government. The Lobito Corridor is different because It is not the US government building a railway in Africa. It’s the US government mobilizing private capital. and working with partners such as the european union, the AFC, the angolan government the zami government the conglise government to bring in um private capital private investors whether they’re rail companies, agriculture companies, logistics companies to um to sort of put their own money into this. The idea is that private sector investors who might otherwise balk at the idea of investing in africa will be reassured by the involvement of US government it’ll de-risk the concept of them and they’ll earn the rewards.
Claude : I’m thinking of your role, Duane, just kind of coming in as an outsider and navigating this very complex business world that is linked to so many strategic and in strategic interests and that is linked to so many political interests. So how do you balance the larger interest kind of geopolitical and economic interests that we’ve been talking about with the everyday African who’s going to be impacted by this huge project.
Dwayne: So for me, it was never about how I navigate a massive ah don know international quandary of America versus China or America’s impact on Africa or Chinese impact on Africa. it was very much that was in the background. Yes. But for me, it was all about how do I tell the story of the little person, how this changes their lives and how this impacts their communities and what the future looks like.
The truth is, if we are going to and we talk about a lot in the West, this greener future, go into this net zero future. If we’re going to do it, we’re going to impact communities somewhere.
And in this instance, the communities are going to be impacted, have been impacted in the past and will continue to be impacted by mining, by exploitation. The difference this time was Will they be benefiting from the mining that takes place in their backyard and at the end of their streets in some cases?
In the Copperbelt region, you have lots and lots of these smaller artisanal mines, and they don’t do anything to clean up the mess they made.
And oftentimes, they actually don’t care about the mess they make as long as they can extract the resources they want. What I found with mines like Kamoa was there was a cognitive, you know, a conscious attempt or a conscious… um the I don’t know, choice to clean up any mess they made or to prevent any incidents to start with. They employ technology, so they wouldn’t have to dig out as much material to get to the best ore underground.
And I know, you know, one of the questions I get asked a lot is, well, what does the mining do for people who don’t work within the mines? And I can tell you now, it provides jobs, it provides revenue, it provides local amenities.
It increases the skills in the area. And I’m not here as an advocate for mining. But these are the things that I was hearing. So mining is inherently good for the communities.
And especially based on the fact that people who lived in these communities previously told me about the way their lives had improved. They told me about how their lives deteriorated when the mines went down or reduced in size.
Claude : Let me push back a little bit.
Dwayne: Yeah.
Claude : You said mining is good for the communities.
I would rephrase that as mining potentially can be good for the communities if it’s ethically done.
What are some of the pitfalls that we should be aware of in large scale project such as the Lobito Corridor as related in your film Lobito Bound?
Dwayne: I’m gonna push back even gentler than you did. I think mining can be good for the communities when it’s done properly. In truth, I benefit from mining.
My community here in the UK benefits from mining. What we need to do is make sure that the people on the ground where it’s taking place are empowered or feel empowered and are benefiting. Some of the pitfalls like you asked about,
The mess that’s left behind, i think earlier last year, there was a mining incident in in northern Zambia. Actually, it’s a place that we we traveled through where a dam broke and some tailings and wastewater went into the local river system and it poisoned everything in that river system. Now, that’s a pitfall.
Claude : It’s terrible.
Dwayne: People being exploited is a pitfall. When it’s done properly, that doesn’t happen. When you have um you know, standards in place and oversight being done properly and safety measures in place.
Mining can be done properly and it can benefit the communities that it’s taking place in. I’ll tell you something. At the screening of Lobito Bound, I had a discussion with a woman afterwards and she said we should stop mining.
I think we should stop mining in Africa. And I said, well, hold on a second. Let me let me push back. I said, do you have a phone? She said, yes. I said, well, I guarantee you something in that phone comes from Africa. If we stop mining, we stop our way of life.
What we need to do is reduce the impacts on the people who are in the worst position to offset that impact or to absorb the impact.
Claude : I think it’s good that we’re talking about this from the perspective of that woman that you describe, because we are very much about showcasing the opportunities that are presented to ordinary people in Africa, but also knowing what some of the risks are.
Dwayne: Look at, you know, locations like Kitwe. Kitwe is an old mining town. And I think most people who would want to tell the story of future mining might overlook Kitwe.
But the truth is, when you go to a place like that and you meet the people on the ground, the people who actually benefited from the last mining boom, they lived through that. They grew as a community as a result of it. And then when that slowed down, they felt the impact of it.
It’s almost a roadmap to what might happen now if we’re not careful.
Claude: How do you make sense of it all and actually tell the human story
Dwayne: And one of the contributors described life in Kitwe as a result the mines. He talked about having the first the first house with an indoor toilet. He talked about being able to do recreational things like rugby and swimming and parties. He talked about his family being ah elevated, as well as his extended family. And he talked about the impact of that mine closing down.
And for me, it was clear that mining can have a profound positive impact when it’s done properly and when the people working within it are supported.
Extending that outwards now, I think it can have a profound positive impact … So, for example, those who will ride the railway, they can bring their goods to and from a larger market now. For those who are able to see their family and friends, and it doesn’t take them two days to travel there. The mining companies will need skilled workers. And my hope is um is that they’ll get these skilled workers from the locality.
Claude Grunitzky : Now I’m going to switch to you, Sam, and ask you about Africell, the company you work for. i mean, it’s you guys have been around for, I think, over 25 years. You have millions of so of of subscribers all over Africa. It’s a telecommunications company. But what why would Africell fund a project like this. I’m used to telcos like MTN or Orange just showing ads all over Africa. This is a very unusual project for our telecommunications company.
Sam : You’re right, Claude. It is very unconventional and we’re very proud of that.. So you’re right, AFRICELL was established 25 years ago, now 26. we are distinguished, I think, within the landscape of African telecoms by our kind of entrepreneurial spirit, our nimbleness, our creativity.
We’re also an American company. So we are the only US-owned mobile network operator in Africa. And that brings a certain sense of innovation, transparency, as I say, creativity.
And all of those things sort of converge or converged when it came to to making Libido Bound. um we saw a story that was relevant to us because first its core theme is connection and connection just is afrocell’s business
we are actively pursuing the digitization of the Lobito Corridor through fiber cables, satellite, normal mobile coverage.
So for us, it’s a really relevant story. We are part of it. We’re in two of the three countries that the Lobito Corridor touches.
Anyone who has an interest in in Africa, in mining and railways, in US-Africa policy, in US-Africa rivalry, in critical minerals, in the future of the green economy, in telecoms, in Dwayne Fields, we’d encourage anyone with any of those interests or none of those interests to watch it because it is, in addition to being quite a serious investigation into a topic of enormous global significance, it’s also just a really cool road trip film.
with some amazing scenery and some really awesome cars and just some fantastic moments of levity and humour and peril and risk. and It’s a good film.
