Critical minerals in Africa

Executive summary

Advanced and emerging economies are intensifying their pursuit of critical minerals essential for the digital and green transitions as well as for sectors such as aerospace and defence. Countries need to build reliable and resilient supply chains to access these minerals to maintain their economic and energy security as well as their competitiveness. Africa’s vast mineral wealth – accounting for 10.6% of global critical mineral exports – positions it as an increasingly important, though still relatively minor, player in international supply chains. This paradox of abundance and marginalisation reflects deeper structural challenges that have long characterised Africa's relationship with its natural resources.

Africa’s potential to supply minerals, metals and advanced materials remains largely untapped.

Mining is an important economic driver for 15 mineral-rich sub-Saharan economies but this economic centrality has not translated into commensurate control over value creation. Mining constitutes 8.8% of GDP on average in mineral-rich African countries and generates over half of export revenues, while creating millions of direct and indirect jobs. However, Africa’s critical mineral exports remain overwhelmingly raw (24%) or semi-processed (72%), perpetuating the continent's subordinate position in global value chains. While processing facilities exist across Zambia, Morocco, the DRC, South Africa, and elsewhere, these represent isolated nodes rather than integrated industrial ecosystems capable of challenging established processors.

Despite abundant mineral resources across the continent, only a handful of African countries rank among the world’s leading producers of minerals. The DRC dominates global production of cobalt (over 70%), South Africa and Gabon are top global producers of manganese, Guinea controls 25% of world bauxite output, and South Africa remains central to platinum group metals and chromium supply. Yet this documented wealth likely understates reality and declining exploration investment, driven by political instability, resource nationalism, and unfavourable policy shifts, means that the continent's true mineral endowments remain substantially unmapped.

The foreign investment landscape in mining is more diverse than headline narratives suggest but remains largely upstream-focused. While Chinese enterprises attract disproportionate attention due to their concentration in cobalt, copper, and lithium projects across the DRC, Zambia, and Zimbabwe, they are highly geographically and commodity concentrated. Chinese companies rank fifth in African mine ownership behind the United States, Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom. Australian and Canadian junior and intermediate firms dominate exploration, contributing over 50% of continental exploration budgets, while Chinese investors acquire projects after discoveries are made. Critically, however, foreign investment in Africa’s minerals sector remains overwhelmingly upstream-oriented, maintaining Africa’s role as a supplier of unprocessed materials.

This structural positioning stems from interconnected challenges: governance gaps that leave many countries capturing only 40% of potential mineral revenues; infrastructure and logistics bottlenecks; investment gaps in developing economies’ mining projects; and the formidable competitive advantages of established non-African processing facilities with their economies of scale and vertical integration.

Making the most of African countries’ mineral’s endowment

Africa has significant mineral resources that can be leveraged to drive the continent’s development agenda. However, attaining these goals requires fundamentals to be in place. These include:

• Comprehensive geological and mineral information systems (GMIS). National, regional, and continental-level governments could prioritise providing more funding to undertake comprehensive geological mapping to adequately inform policy and strategy.

• Updated legal and institutional framework for contracts and licensing. African countries could therefore update institutional frameworks and invest in sector administration capacity building so mining codes reflect current policy ambitions beyond attracting foreign direct investment.

• Balanced and attractive fiscal revenue collection and management. Fiscal policies should ensure that a fair share of the resource rents goes to the state; offer predictable revenue flows without discouraging investment; and be resilient against price swings and corporate tax avoidance.

Policy action should support the formalisation of artisanal and small-scale mining activities (ASM), which supply international markets and provide incomes for millions on the continent. This strategic imperative - long recognised by continental, regional and national authorities - will unlock the full potential of ASM exploitation and limit external negativities.

Foreign investment in mining and metal assets in African remains constrained by a number of perceived and actual operational and governance risks, including environmental challenges, pervasive corruption and fragile contexts where conflict and human rights violation remain widespread. African governments, supported by international partners and with the active participation of supply chain actors and civil society organisations, can leverage the significant expertise accumulated in the past 20 years in parts of the continent to tackle these risks and challenges. Regional initiatives like the ICGLR Protocol on the illegal exploitation of natural resources, amongst others, provide meaningful insights that could inspire similar approaches on other parts of the continent.

Leveraging continental initiatives and regional cooperation to unlock value addition perspectives.

The current mineral boom offers a window of opportunity to break this cycle. However, success relies on developing a national, regional, and continental industrial strategy for the mining sector.

• Efforts to expand into midstream and downstream processing will require robust and well-articulated industrial, investment and fiscal policies to ensure that African jurisdictions can increase their investment profile while supporting the development of local manufacturing sectors.

• Continental and regional coordination and cooperation will be key to unlock value addition perspectives in Africa. Coordinated regional processing hubs that source ore from multiple countries can operate at greater scale, limit excess capacity and are more cost-competitive in global markets.

• Emerging continental frameworks therefore represent a strategic opportunity to move in that direction. The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) provides the essential framework for collaboration, offering a route toward greater regional integration through improved trade facilitation, potentially encouraging intra-African trade of mineral resources and development of regional mineral value chains.

• While several mineral-rich states have identified their own strategic minerals and are experimenting with industrial policy tools, comprehensive strategic mineral strategies are not in place across Africa. Adopting national development plans that integrate mineral resource development with local beneficiation objectives would support African countries’ development ambitions.