There is a fierce scramble underway for the minerals to enable a low-carbon future – and it is costing Africa $24 billion a year and risking a global energy transition.

Africa has long been the world’s supplier of raw materials, from gold and diamonds to oil and gas. Now, with over 40% of the global reserves of transition minerals, we face the prospect of continuing this role into the green economy.

The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) alone holds 60% of the world’s cobalt, a critical component for lithium-ion batteries. However, if the current trends continue, Africa will once again find itself exporting raw materials while others – predominantly in China, Europe, and the United States – reap the financial rewards and the benefits of the technologies produced by them. Currently Africa is left to bear the brunt of the climate crisis while others profit from our resources.

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Economic modelling from Publish What You Pay, released this week, shows a stark opportunity lost. Africa could boost its GDP by at least $24 billion annually and create 2.3 million jobs by introducing robust manufacturing and trade policies for transition minerals supply chains. The biggest job opportunities lie in manufacturing things like solar panels and batteries which would only be possible with technology transfer and skilling up a new green workforce on the continent.

And this is only part of the picture. As well as transforming minerals into products that can be exported at better prices – bolstering economies and, hopefully, driving development – African countries could use them to build their own cleaner, affordable energy systems. This is a continent where 600 million still don’t have access to electricity.

West shutting out Africa

But the world’s wealthiest nations are determined to maintain control over critical mineral supply chains, prioritising their own economic interests. The EU has set its sights on processing 40% of the critical minerals it consumes within its borders by 2030, while the UK is adopting a similar approach.

Q&A: What you need to know about clean energy and critical minerals supply chains

The US, through its Inflation Reduction Act, is offering tax incentives to electric vehicle manufacturers that source, process or recycle minerals within the US or its free trade agreement (FTA) partners. The US has 20 trade agreements in effect and only one is with an African country: Morocco.

These moves to “secure” supplies of minerals block sensible policies for Africa to capture more of the economic value in global transition mineral value chains.

Green industrial strategy for the continent

In response, some leaders are taking steps to ensure they see benefits. Last week,  Zambia’s mining minister announced a state investment firm that will hold at least a 30% share of all future critical mineral production.

However, isolated national efforts like Zambia’s recent move, are not enough. This challenge goes beyond individual economies. What’s at stake is Africa’s ability to shape its future and take a central role in the global energy transition – not as a mere supplier of raw materials, but as a hub of innovation, manufacturing and sustainable development. To achieve this, African nations must work together, leveraging their collective power.

Africa must reap the benefits of its energy transition minerals

We need a coordinated industrial strategy across the continent, where African nations cooperate to develop their mineral processing and manufacturing capabilities. Some of the solutions are within our grasp; finalising and fully implementing the African Continental Free Trade Area, if done right, could be a game-changer by allowing African countries to trade with each other more easily and develop regional industries that can compete globally.

The African Union is currently developing a green minerals strategy which could chart a course to deeper regional economic integration. The Africa Minerals Development Centre, set up by the Africa Union in 2016, could super-charge this progress if it were to receive the necessary 15 ratifications from member states to be a fully-fledged institution; it currently has just four.

African leaders must promise benefits for Africans

Above all, we need commitment from our leaders that Africa’s mineral wealth will benefit its own people. The mining industry is among the most harmful to people and planet, and the most brutal in its repression of critics. We need transparent governance of the mining sector and robust laws to protect communities and the environment, along with a commitment to building local industries that create jobs and drive sustainable development.

This month, we might see the discussion around equity, trade and development in the minerals scramble take on the UN stage if the principles from the panel on critical energy transition minerals live up to their mandate of ensuring “the race to net zero cannot trample over the poor.” But change is happening too slowly.

Africa must not be relegated to the role of the world’s green mine. We have the resources, the talent and the need to develop industries that support our sustainable development. In turn, we will accelerate the global energy transition. It’s time for Africa to take its rightful place – not as a mere supplier of raw materials, but as a leader in the new, green economy.

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For too long, Africa has supplied the raw materials which drive development abroad, while Africans remain locked in endless cycles of poverty at home.  

This has been happening even before Western European colonial powers carved up the African continent in the 19th century’s “scramble for Africa”, exporting rubber, diamonds, gold, ivory, palm oil and other wealth, to process and transform it into saleable commodities. 

Today, this damaging pattern remains intact, as wealth continues to haemorrhage from Africa in this way. 

To take just one graphic example: 600 million people in sub-Saharan Africa – or 53% of the region’s population — still don’t have access to electricity on a continent that possesses all the minerals needed to build its own energy infrastructure.  

Now a new “scramble for Africa” has begun. This time, it is for the African minerals that will be crucial for the world to have any chance of halting climate chaos.  

Q&A: What you need to know about clean energy and critical minerals supply chains

The African continent holds vast quantities of the transition minerals – such as cobalt, lithium and nickel – which are used to help produce, transport, store and use electricity generated from cleaner sources such as wind and sun – and which are a prerequisite for a clean energy future.  

Tanzania, for instance, possesses huge reserves of nickel which is a key ingredient in the lithium-ion batteries that power everything from mobile phones to electric vehicles. 

As the world rushes to secure these precious materials, Africans must break with the past.  

The wealth these minerals generate must spur African development, giving our citizens the roads, hospitals, schools, electricity and other basic services so many of them desperately need. 

“New” partnerships? 

Many of Africa’s historic exploiters are among the Western powers which are now rushing to secure transition minerals. 

The US-led “Mineral Security Partnership,” which includes the European Union and other most powerful economies from the OECD block, is positioning itself in Africa’s resource-rich countries.  

Concurrently, the EU is supposedly redesigning its ties with Africa and other mineral-rich nations through “Strategic Partnerships“.  

All those initiatives are committed to “bring economic benefits to local communities”, allowing partner countries to “move up the value chain” – but are effectively enveloping the continent from multiple angles in a concerted push for resources. 

And it is no secret that mineral exports are ruled by international trade policies set up, influenced and dominated by Western powers, allowing them to access African resources at a good price. 

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In this realm, it remains an open question whether these partnerships will pave the way for genuine development, or – as so often in the past – merely serve foreign interests.  

In other words, will they simply be a means of continuing business as usual – keeping Africa trapped in ‘extractivism’ – or offer Africa a path to self-determination? 

Challenging the status quo 

The OECD Forum on Responsible Minerals Supply Chains, taking place this week in Paris, is a crucial opportunity for African leaders to assert their vision for a new era of mineral resource management.  

This event remains a forum dominated by consumer regions’ representatives and priorities, but we Africans need to make ourselves heard.  

We cannot wait any longer. African leaders must challenge the status quo and advocate for deals and trade policies that empower producer nations. 

They can also insist that mining companies respect the rights of the Indigenous and local communities most impacted by mining – peoples whose way of life protects priceless ecosystems that are crucial for preventing climate change, biodiversity loss and the risk of future pandemics emerging from deforested landscapes.  

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Free trade rules favour already industrialised regions. One of the ways to counter this is by creating a web of preferential trade agreements among African countries. This would allow them to access their neighbours’ transition minerals at lower prices, to help them build their own clean energy technologies.  

Regional collaboration is the key to ensuring that Africa gains its rightful place in the new power map drawn by the energy transition. The African Union, the Southern African Development Community and other regional blocs could play a pivotal role in this process, promoting intra-regional trade and economic cohesion. 

African civil society works across borders to ensure that deals signed by African governments with consumer regions reflect the continent’s collective interests. But we can’t do this alone. 

We need to unite with our leaders around a just vision for our minerals. Only then can the continent truly benefit from them, turning the page on a history of exploitation and underdevelopment.  

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