Highlights
- Africa’s critical mineral reserves are at risk of exploitation without comprehensive national and continental strategies to develop domestic processing capabilities.
- Global demand for critical minerals threatens African economies with potential displacement, environmental damage, and continued economic dependency.
- Without robust governance, investment in technical capacity, and local beneficiation, Africa may become a victim rather than a sovereign player in the global mineral market.
A new report (opens in a new tab) from the Africa Center for Strategic Studies (opens in a new tab) warns that Africa risks repeating the “resource curse” unless it radically rethinks how it manages the current surge in global demand for critical minerals. With China still dominating 87% of global rare earth and strategic mineral processing, African nations remain locked in extractive dependency, hampered by weak infrastructure, limited industrial capacity, and chronic governance failures. The Center’s message is clear: if Africa does not build domestic value chains, invest in technical capacity, and enforce transparent governance, it will again be left exporting raw materials while importing poverty and instability.
The report’s tone is sober, urgent, and reform-minded. It calls out foreign firms that partner with corrupt regimes and African elites who have historically looted mineral wealth for personal power. Unless African countries create real accountability, enforce beneficiation mandates, and plan for the next generation of battery technologies (like sodium-ion), today’s mineral wealth could become tomorrow’s stranded assets.
The global scramble for critical minerals has entered a new phase. What Africa does next will determine whether it becomes a victim or a sovereign player.
Last year Dr. James Boafo (opens in a new tab) of Murdoch University, along with collaborators from Edge Hill University, Ghana’s University of Mines and Technology, and the University of Queensland warn in a sweeping and sobering new study published in Resources Policy (opens in a new tab) that the global race for Africa’scritical minerals—particularly lithium—is already replicating many of the destabilizing patterns of past extractive booms. Drawing on case studies from Zimbabwe, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Ghana, and Namibia, the authors argue that the urgency claims fueling foreign investment primarily reflect the geostrategic interests of Western nations and China, not the economic development needs of African countries.
The study finds that while Africa hosts more than 30% of global critical mineral reserves, most nations are trapped in the lowest rungs of the value chain, limited to raw material extraction. Domestic processing and refining remain elusive due to underdeveloped infrastructure, limited energy access, and dependence on foreign firms. In the lithium sector alone, mining activities have already triggered community displacement, biodiversity loss, unsafe labor conditions, and rising artisanal mining conflicts. Ecological costs are especially alarming: large-scale vegetation loss, groundwater stress, and biodiversity threats now endanger regions vital for global climate stability—ironically in service of “green” energy transitions abroad.
Boafo and colleagues argue that unless the African Union and national governments implement enforceable critical minerals strategies—including binding local beneficiation rules, anti-corruption mechanisms, and investments in scientific and industrial capacity—the continent risks deepening its dependence on foreign powers while absorbing the social and environmental fallout. Left unchecked, the lithium boom could become a 21st-century replay of Africa’s oil and gold-era extract.
Critical Minerals and Rare Earth Element Deposits: Africa
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