Luanda, Oct. 20, 2025 (Lusa) - The CEDESA organisation believes that the Lobito Corridor in Angola should have an independent African observatory to track commitments and investments, promoting accountability among stakeholders and a more inclusive and transparent approach.
These are the main conclusions of lawyer Rui Verde, a member of the CEDESA think tank, an entity dedicated to the study and research of political and economic issues in Southern Africa, in an article entitled "The Lobito Corridor: Rhetoric, Financial Engineering and Dispute of the Figures".
In the text, he exposes the project's weaknesses, raising questions about transparency, coordination and traceability of European and North American commitments, stressing that "China remains a dominant player in African mining, so it is unlikely that the Lobito Corridor will be a success without Chinese participation and collaboration".
The document, which brings together "various contributions from participants in the II Angola-DRC Forum" held in September, criticises the fact that the corridor is presented as one of the most ambitious projects in the European Global Gateway infrastructure programme, a label that groups together "dissimilar initiatives" and raises doubts about the transparency, coordination and traceability of the commitments made, since "it does not constitute a direct and comprehensive financing mechanism".
The absence of a consolidated framework that allows for a distinction between political promises, effective investments and conditional financing "makes it difficult to assess the real impact of the programme", says the academic, stressing that "the fragmentation of sources — between the European Union, the US, private operators and multilateral institutions — requires a more inclusive and transparent approach".
Rui Verde stresses that the issue of traceability of commitments is central to the Lobito Corridor, questioning "the lack of a public and verifiable inventory of projects, amounts and beneficiaries", which makes it difficult to assess the real impact of the Global Gateway.
He therefore advocates the creation of an independent observatory with African participation to monitor commitments and assess impacts.
"Such an initiative would make it possible to distinguish between political promises, effective investments and conditional financing, promoting greater accountability and alignment with sustainable development goals, and avoiding yet another neocolonial project of mere accelerated mining," he suggests.
The involvement of the United States is also questioned, since "the announced American loans follow market conditions and most of the effective investments come from private companies," notes the Centre for Economic and Social Development Studies in Africa (CEDESA).
For Rui Verde, it is clear that "the strategic value of African minerals is mobilised to justify investments that also benefit Western industries," pointing to the rhetoric of "equitable partnerships" that contrasts with the reality of value chains dominated by refining centres outside the African continent.
In the text, CEDESA also mentions a large-scale energy project led by the US company Hydro-Link, a subsidiary of Symbion Power, and financed by US entities, to build an electricity transmission line from Angolan power stations to the mining region of Kolwezi in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Rui Verde points out that this project, which channels Angolan energy to power Congolese mining, "reinforces Angola's role as a platform for the export of energy and mineral resources" and "is part of a US foreign policy logic that mobilises business allies close to Donald Trump".
Also relevant to this project is the participation of the Israeli group Mitrelli, which has a strong presence in Angola, "which allows us to anticipate an alliance between Angolan economic power — and political power, since the two are linked — and the financial interests of Donald Trump's potential allies," he concludes.
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