Geographical anchor: Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, and neighbouring states. Presidential champion: H.E. Felix Tshisekedi, President of the DRC.
The Great Lakes sits atop the most consequential concentration of critical minerals on the planet. The DRC alone holds an estimated 70% of the world's cobalt reserves, along with substantial deposits of coltan, copper, and lithium. These resources are the feedstock of the clean energy transition - electric vehicles, battery storage, and solar infrastructure. Yet the value extracted from the region remains overwhelmingly captured abroad.
The Great Lakes Prosperity Platform directs the Accra Reset framework toward three interlocking priorities: health-enabled regional manufacturing, with a focus on bio-innovation and pharmaceutical production; critical minerals processing and value addition at the source, rather than raw extraction; and skills mobility and credential recognition across the regional border system.
The Sphere does not attempt to resolve the geopolitical complexity of the Great Lakes. It proceeds on a specific and achievable premise: that shared economic platforms create shared incentives, and that shared incentives change the political calculus of conflict more durably than any external mediation can.