South Africa, Botswana, and Zimbabwe Submit Joint Bid to Host AFCON 2028

The Women's Africa Cup of Nations (WAFCON) and the gas pipeline project between Nigeria and Morocco serve as vivid examples of the continent of Africa's growing ambitions.

Football as a Catalyst for Growth

The Women's Africa Cup of Nations goes beyond being just a sporting tournament; it demonstrates the transformation of women's sports across the continent. Over the last decade, investments in women's football have significantly increased. National teams are becoming more competitive, attendance is rising, and African players are securing contracts with major European clubs. The successes of teams such as Nigeria, South Africa, and Morocco prove the continent's ability to compete on the world stage.

Hosting WAFCON creates an opportunity to sustain this momentum. Beyond the matches themselves, the tournament stimulates tourism, supports local businesses, and provides young girls across Africa with visible role models. It also reinforces the idea that women's sports deserve the same attention and investment as men's.

Economic Significance of Tournaments

For Africa, such competitions are increasingly turning into platforms for economic interaction and cultural exchange, rather than just sporting contests.

Gas Pipeline Connecting Economies

In addition to uniting people through football, the Nigeria-Morocco gas pipeline aims to connect economies. The proposed six-thousand-kilometer pipeline will transport natural gas from Nigeria along the Atlantic coast of Africa, passing through 13 countries before reaching Morocco, with the long-term goal of connecting to European markets. The recent approval by the participating countries was a significant milestone for the project, which had been under development for years.

The importance of this project lies not only in energy export but also in regional development. Reliable energy remains one of the main obstacles to industrialization in Africa. Millions of households and businesses still face unreliable power supply, which limits production, investment, and job creation. Expanding access to natural gas can support electricity generation, strengthen industries, and promote greater economic cooperation among participating countries.

Continental Integration

Like the East African railway projects or the Trans-African Highway network, this pipeline reflects the desire to make Africa more interconnected internally, rather than relying predominantly on foreign markets.

These two events reflect a substantial shift in the history of Africa's development. For decades, many African economies depended on raw material exports while importing finished products. Today, there is a growing understanding that long-term growth depends on strengthening regional trade, overall infrastructure, and closer cooperation between African states.

The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) is based on this concept. Improved transport links, stronger energy grids, and greater freedom of movement facilitate cross-border business. Major sporting events like WAFCON contribute to this concept by bringing together fans, media representatives, businessmen, and governments from across the continent, thereby strengthening relationships that go beyond mere competition.

Africa's Future Through Partnership

Although Morocco is the host for both these events, the story belongs to Africa itself. The success of WAFCON will be judged not only by the quality of the football but also by its ability to inspire the next generation of female athletes and continue to raise the prestige of women's sports on the continent.

Similarly, the success of the Nigeria-Morocco gas pipeline will depend not only on engineering solutions. It will be determined by sustainable political cooperation, long-term investment, and a shared commitment to regional development. Together, they illustrate a continent investing in its future through different but complementary paths: one building connections through sport, the other through infrastructure. Both directions point towards a more integrated Africa, where progress is increasingly driven by cooperation rather than rivalry.

South Africa consistently supports the idea of a united Africa, once envisioned by the country's founder and global icon Nelson Mandela. Mandela dreamed of a unified Africa capable of overcoming common challenges and realizing its vast potential through joint action. He emphasized that continental development is impossible through the actions of individual nations.

Support for African Unity

The principle of unity has guided South Africa's activities since the dawn of democracy. The country strives to strengthen cooperation on the continent and raise Africa's voice on the world stage, advocating not only for unity but also creating institutions and partnerships to realize it.

Through the African Union and the United Nations, South Africa participates in peacekeeping missions, conflict mediation, and post-conflict reconstruction. Significant interventions in Burundi, Sudan, and the Democratic Republic of Congo have contributed to stabilization and the creation of conditions for sustainable development.

Participation in Global Forums

Concurrently, South Africa utilizes its presence in global platforms such as the G20, G7, BRICS, and the UN to shift discussions that often exclude the African perspective. The country actively promotes reforms of international financial institutions, improved access to development finance, and debt relief, thereby helping Africa become an influential voice in shaping a more equitable world order.

Promoting Economic Integration

Beyond diplomatic efforts, South Africa's most significant contribution lies in supporting continental economic integration. The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) offers an unprecedented opportunity to create the world's largest free trade zone, uniting over 1.3 billion people with a combined GDP exceeding $3.4 trillion.

South Africa is one of the largest sources of foreign direct investment on the continent, with South African companies playing a vital role in banking, telecommunications, retail, mining, energy, manufacturing, and logistics sectors. These investments stimulate economic growth in host countries by creating jobs, transferring skills and technology, expanding access to financial and communication services, and strengthening local supply chains.

Under AfCFTA, South Africa also helps reduce non-tariff barriers hindering intra-African trade. By simplifying market access requirements and reducing administrative costs, the country creates a more favorable environment for goods from other African countries in the South African market, which promotes increased trade, industrialization, and the development of regional value chains.

Regional and Bilateral Cooperation

At a more local level, South Africa's partnerships with neighboring states deepen regional integration. A recent state visit to Mozambique strengthened cooperation in trade, infrastructure, and energy, building on the successes of the Maputo Corridor. Cooperation with Botswana has also reinforced economic ties within the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and the Southern African Customs Union (SACU).

Within SADC and SACU, South Africa promotes an industrial strategy supported by the SACU Industrial Development Action Plan and the SACU Development Fund. These tools aim to help the region climb into global value chains by financing critical infrastructure, supporting industrialization, and creating jobs. This economic cooperation is also based on long-standing alliances, such as the Binational Commission of South Africa and Nigeria, established in 1999.

The Commission connects the continent's two largest economies through more than 34 bilateral agreements aimed at expanding trade, deepening investment, and strengthening industrial integration. These bilateral efforts are part of a broader strategy to build a more integrated and competitive African economy. Through transformative initiatives like the North-South Corridor Development, South Africa facilitates the development of roads, railways, ports, and digital networks necessary for the full realization of AfCFTA potential. Furthermore, its role as the host of the Pan-African Parliament in Midrand, Gauteng, provides a constant platform for harmonizing legislation and strengthening democratic governance across borders.

Solidarity in Times of Crisis

South Africa's commitment to the continent is most evident in moments of crisis when solidarity must translate into action. When catastrophic floods and Cyclone Idai struck Mozambique, Malawi, and Zimbabwe, South African rescue teams provided vital on-the-ground assistance.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, South Africa led calls for global equity in vaccine access and advocated for localized medical production when vaccine nationalism threatened to leave developing countries behind. This leadership earned the country the title of African Union Champion for Pandemic Prevention, Preparedness, and Response.

Working with African Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, South Africa continues to strengthen healthcare systems, support the African Medicines Agency, and promote coordinated procurement systems to improve access to essential medical supplies. Its pledge to allocate $13.5 million to the African CDC to aid in treating and containing the recent Ebola outbreak reflects a broader commitment to supporting Africa's capacity to collectively respond to shared challenges.

More than three decades after achieving democracy, South Africa remains dedicated to Mandela's vision of an Africa united by purpose, confident in its potential, and determined to build a future of prosperity and opportunity for all its people.