Africa walking while Asia runs: cobalt nationalism and structural transformation in Indonesia and the DRC

Since the late 2010s, the Congolese and Indonesian governments have designed and implemented a range of cobalt nationalist policies to drive structural transformation. Policies have centred around industrial development in the electric vehicle sector, aiming to move up the global cobalt value chain from extraction to processing and eventually to the manufacture of batteries and vehicles. Based on an assessment of the medium-term outcomes of these measures, it is argued that while both countries have enjoyed some success developing midstream industries in the refining and processing of cobalt ore, Indonesia has progressed further and at greater scale. The chapter investigates the factors that have conditioned these divergent outcomes, chief among them the stronger alignment of cobalt nationalism with Indonesia’s existing industrial capabilities. It closes by considering future vulnerabilities to long-term success, including the speed of technological change away from the use of cobalt in electric vehicle batteries.