From the Angolan port of Lobito to the copper and cobalt mines of the Democratic Republic of Congo and Zambia runs one of the most strategic infrastructures of 21st-century Africa. The Lobito Corridor is more than just a logistics project designed to improve connections between the Atlantic and Central Africa. It lies at the heart of the transformations affecting the global economy: competition between major powers for control of critical raw materials, the reorganization of global value chains, and the growing demand for resources necessary for the energy and digital transition.
To understand its significance, we need to begin with the region's economic geography. Lobito, a port city overlooking the Atlantic, represents the western end of the historic Benguela Railway, which crosses Angola to its eastern border, connecting to the mining areas of the so-called Copperbelt. The latter is one of the most important mining districts on the planet and contains some of the world's largest reserves of copper and cobalt, materials essential for the production of batteries, electric vehicles, energy infrastructure, and digital technologies.
The growing importance of these resources has transformed the Copperbelt into a major battleground for global economic powers. Over the past two decades, China has consolidated a dominant position in the extraction, processing, and marketing of numerous strategic minerals, building a widespread presence in several African economies. In this context, the Lobito Corridor has been embraced by the United States and the European Union as one of the tools for rebalancing supply chains and reducing dependence on production networks where China's presence is particularly strong.
Washington's interest in the project reflects this logic. Ensuring more direct access to critical raw materials strengthens US economic and technological security at a time of growing international competition. At the same time, the corridor allows for the redesign of trade routes and strengthens Western presence in a region increasingly central to global equilibrium.
The European Union also views the project as part of its strategic raw materials procurement strategy. Through the Global Gateway program, Brussels promotes infrastructure investments that, in addition to strengthening economic connections with the African continent, aim to ensure greater access to the resources necessary for European industrial competitiveness.
Italy also fits into this framework. The financial support provided by Cassa Depositi e Prestiti and SACE to the Africa Finance Corporation in 2025 demonstrates Rome's commitment to playing an active role in the corridor's development. This initiative is part of the Mattei Plan, through which the Italian government intends to strengthen its economic presence on the African continent and create new opportunities for national companies operating in the infrastructure, energy, and logistics sectors.
Recent statements by Samaila Zubairu, CEO of Africa Finance Corporation, highlight how the project is considered one of the main catalysts for investment in Southern Africa. For the corridor's promoters, the new infrastructure should foster greater regional economic integration and attract significant international capital flows. However, beyond official statements, the project's economic and political significance lies in the structural dynamics driving its implementation.
From this perspective, the Lobito Corridor is not simply a railway, but a tool through which the processes of extraction, circulation, and appropriation of wealth are being reorganized on a global scale. The competition between the United States, the European Union, and China is not just about access to resources, but about control of the infrastructure and value chains that enable them to transform those resources into economic and geopolitical power.
Infrastructure is part of an international division of labor that continues to assign most African economies the role of suppliers of strategic raw materials. Although trade routes
and the geopolitical balance may change, the position
The subordinate position occupied by these countries within the world economy remains substantially unchanged. Value added, technological capabilities, and financial control continue to be concentrated in the main centers of global accumulation.
In this process, African national bourgeoisies do not present themselves as alternatives to international capital, but participate directly in the mechanisms of accumulation through their control of mining concessions, infrastructure, state apparatuses, and trade flows. Competition between powers thus unfolds through a network of alliances and convergences of interest that involves both global actors and local ruling classes.
The economic benefits generated by the corridor will therefore tend to be concentrated in the hands of these players, who possess the economic and political resources necessary to capture the dominant share of the value produced. Working classes and local communities, however, will continue to occupy the weakest position in the international division of labor, providing low-cost labor and bearing a significant portion of the social and environmental costs associated with the expansion of extractive activities.
From this perspective, the Lobito Corridor does not represent a break with the past, but rather the adaptation of historical relations of dependence to the demands of the energy transition and global competition of the 21st century. More than a simple infrastructure project, it represents one of the ways in which contemporary capitalism reorganizes access to strategic resources and renews the mechanisms of wealth concentration on a global scale.
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Spain 1936: Utopia becomes history
Presentation of the book "Between War and Revolution"
A journey through the history of the Spanish Civil War and Revolution.
September 26, 2026 Railway Afterwork
Viale I. Nievo, 32 Livorno at 5:30 p.m.
In Spain, in July 1936, the military coup was the spark that ignited an intense revolutionary period that constituted one of the greatest "assaults on heaven" in the history of the world working class. In many cities, the army was defeated by the proletariat-organized in Catalonia and other regions in the anarcho-syndicalist CNT-which transcended the struggle to defend the bourgeois republic to establish an egalitarian libertarian communist society.
The text presented here deals in a concise and concise way with the birth and development of anarchism in Spain, the coup d'état and the response of the working class in the cities and countryside, the subsequent government choices of the Confederation and the Iberian Anarchist Federation caught between the dichotomy between war and revolution.
For inquiries: ilcantiere@autistici.org
Sources:
https://lobitocorridor.com/
https://www.africafc.org/
https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/africa-finance-corp-sign-320-million-deal-with-italy-bolster-lobito-funding-2025-06-05/
https://www.iai.it/en/publications/c41/what-role-italys-infrastructure-diplomacy-lessons-lobito-corridor
https://www.africaeaffari.it/piano-mattei-cdp-sace-250-mln-per-corridoio-lobito/
https://www.mur.gov.it/it/piano-mattei-ricerca-e-alta-formazione
https://www.afdb.org/en
https://24plus.ilsole24ore.com/sez/scenari
https://alternativalibertaria.org/
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Source: A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
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