The Chinese invest in African (sic) for minerals etc. 
  they bring in their own workers (why do they do this if 
  African wages are lower?).

This.

There's a most excellent documentary on the inroads the Chinese have industrially made in Africa called Empire of Dust (2011)[1] thats eminently watchable.[2][3][4]

Even going back a decade and more, the Chinese not only brought their own machinery, trucks, heavy and light equipment of all kinds down to nuts and bolts but also their own manpower for everything but the most menial of tasks for which they employed the local populace. This shows how unreliable or qualifiedly unworthy the Chinese deemed the skilled population in their host countries & how inefficient local governments were in furnishing them with basic skills.

[1]

Empire of Dust (2011)

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2148945/

[2]

EMPIRE OF DUST - TRAILER

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkEqI3_J4xg

[3]

Empire of Dust China in Africa Mirror

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LSuZGlqL34

[4]

It's all so....tiresome.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9LaHualx-s

Or it could be a language issue. Africa speaks Portuguese, French, English, and local languages, more or less in that order. It doesn't speak Chinese. And while many Chinese speak English, there are far fewer Chinese managers with the time or the interest to learn yet another language. (Especially not Portuguese, which is one of the hardest Euro-based languages.)

Anyway - Africa will be developed after Asia is exhausted. It will take longer, but it will happen within a few decades.

Unemployment

Your comment seems to be unnecessarily sweeping - in the sense that Africa is not a single country, but a continent with more countries than there are US states.

As such there is an enormous range to all of your points, which, with few exceptions, are sufficiently local to make your comment meaningless.

It would be the same as sweeping generalisations about the USA that equated new York, ohio, texas and Montana as all being the same place.

Well to be fair he was replying to another sweeping comment.

I have to disagree with you on almost all points. I lived in East Africa for 20 years, and my observation of the African people was that their intelligence was similar to what you'd find anywhere in silicon valley. The problems you mentioned with financial services was solved way back in 1999 and rivals any mobile / cashless system anywhere else in the world, and that was long before things like square came out in the US. Other issues you mentioned such as electricity and water are the reason why you will find some of the most innovative people out there. Rather than complain about their inconvenient lack of opportunities, they think outside the box to achieve whatever they want to achieve. When everything is handed to you on a silver platter, that is what causes lower IQs, and when you have less and are constrained, that is what causes you to innovate. It's amazing to see what some of the makers there make, even the children, when they have very little, or practically nothing sometimes.

I don't think people are suggesting folks in Africa have a lower IQ, they're stating that they have less training an expertise (required for this type of manufacturing). I guess the big question of this is the case is how to get people there skilled up. I wonder how China did it before becoming a manufacturing juggernaut.

China had a strong and very long tradition of educating the members of its administration, which I guess counted. There was of course Mao’s Cultural Revolution that tried to wipe all that tradition off, but it failed miserably.

Its not about intelligence. Its about suitability for highly complex multi-level, multi-faceted complex economic supply-chain and supplier system.

It requires good government, good laws, good enforcement of laws, good infrastructure, good stability and much more.

Other countries had this too and the made the necessary changes.

Some African nations did a good job many did not. Once they do they will see similar growth to East Asian countries or other.

I love your aspirational and positive attitude.

"Other issues you mentioned such as electricity and water are the reason why you will find some of the most innovative people out there. Rather than complain about their inconvenient lack of opportunities, they think outside the box to achieve whatever they want to achieve."

I get it - if you don't have consistent electricity you 'innovate' and I admire that a lot. But I'm sorry - you're going to need consistent electricity to do many things. It's not a 'complaint'.

There's just no way around having basic infrastructure. Also - consider that a nation that cannot get consistent electricity obviously has some deep problems. So it's partly the 'lack of electricity' - but really, it's the 'problems that cause a nation to not be able to have electricity' - those are the real underlying problems.

That said, nowhere in East Africa is going to be making electronics in any capacity any time soon.

You should also consider thy on earth you would want to do that, as it's not really a natural advantage.

I live in Canada - and we don't make many electronics either! Because it's not suited to us.

Does your President/Prime Minister have political control of the Central Bank, and the large National banks, and can he use it to make massive strategic investments in certain technologies and use it for export financing?

Do you have an attractive enough economy that you can lure international investors, and then force them to hand over their IP? Do you have the depth of Engineering talent to take the plans for an advanced European rail system, copy them, make your own train system?

Do you have a malleable a population of professionals willing to work cheap, to be servile to others and say 'yes, yes, yes' no matter what, work 7 days a week and get it done no matter what? Those are strong words, but that's China for the last 30 years, working with them, they always say 'Yes', it's always cheap, and they move extremely quickly. The results are something else to talk about, but they have a very specific kind of attitude towards work, that for better or worse, works for them. They have a strong sense of nationalist vigour like right out of the 1950's.

So if you can't have enough foundational sophisticate to do electricity, let alone those things, then as you say, with an innovative attitude you can just do something other than electronics.

Much higher value and branded goods along the lines of what Africa is doing already, i.e. going 'up market' at least on some things. Exotic produce, processed, textiles, definitely tourism and of course agriculture, probably specialised.

Think of the economy like a pyramid. If you want to build higher, you have to have a wider, and more solid base. It would be a much higher ROI for any nation to establish competent civics (ie 'base') that it would to try to develop advanced foundries.

Last note: the elite in Africa is a problem, moreover, there is no 'professional class' of owners, artisans ie tradition of highly competent people doing complicated, industrious things handing down from generation to generation. Surely there was some of this, it's just adaptable to our current version of globalism.

China has had an established bureaucracy for thousands of years. So has Europe. Africa and 'mostly' South America have not, and that is the 'social pyramid' (of competency, not just power) which is necessary as well. Though there are some obvious things about that people find unfair, it's just as unavoidable.

Some of the things you said are correct. I won't dispute them but they are solvable problems.

This is a great comment. But I think India will force companies to manufacture locally by having heavy tariffs in key sectors/components (which involve Chinese manufacturing), to offset cheaper production costs in China. It may not be a bad strategy for any country wanting to reduce dependence on China.

Labour is cheaper in Africa than in China. What Chinese company spend to ferry a construction worker from China to Africa is enough to pay about 10 African workers in a year. China wants to to give Chinese jobs to Chinese people. However when it comes to manufacturing of plastics and other low tech products they use Africans. Why are they not importing labour from China? I had the opportunities to work in a complex environment where some Chinese companies operate. Local workers were far knowledgeable. But these companies would not allow locals to handle their core machines, something that is not harder than playstation games. Everything is written in Chinese and locals are not trained in such language. I have the honour to have visited Western countries, and I can't remember if they have apps that are not readily available in Africa. Africa may be underdeveloped but they have reasonably educated people. They maybe lacking core skill but they are not lazy and unfocused.

Bring manufacturing to Africa would really help grow world economy and would also end this current trade war. It may not be easy but it is possible. Africa has the cheapest labour you can find anywhere, hardworking people with strong sense of confidence. Africa is closer to Europe and America than China and India. Africa has strong cultural ties already with Europe and America.

Banking services develop along with businesses, and as the economy improves every sector would improve too. China was not built over night.

Thats a generalisations you have to look at specific countries which are developed enough to start now and over a period of time other countries with the right mix of resources would benefit and profit aswell. My guess is countries like Kenya and South Africa are developed enough for starting manufacturing. As far as design and knowledge skill is concerned that can be hired from other countries.