LONDON: The intensifying global competition for critical minerals could be a transformative moment for Africa.
The continent is already a major producer of energy transition metals such as copper, cobalt and manganese but is nowhere near its full potential.
Africa's share of global mineral revenues sits at just 10%, despite accounting for 30% of the world's reserves, according to the Brookings Institution.
There may be yet more riches hidden underground. It's difficult to know, because the continent was the target of just 10% of global mineral exploration in 2024, according to the U.S. think-tank Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).
Moving forward, however, that number is likely to increase as Africa becomes the front line in the global battle for resources, with the West vying with China for control of metals that are core components of both green technologies and AI data centers.
Can Africa seize its metallic moment?
To do so, the continent must break with a long history of resource exploitation by external powers.
European colonisation of Africa in the late 19th and early 20th centuries laid the foundations for unequal trading relationships centred on the extraction of raw materials for overseas markets — a pattern that persists to this day.
From the rubber plantations in the Belgian Congo through goldfields in South Africa to the copper mines of what is now Zambia, Africans have provided the blood, sweat and tears only to see the rewards reaped by foreign owners.
Now, many African governments are realising that the global hunger for critical metals offers a unique chance to change the terms of resource trade.
LET'S BUILD A SMELTER
One obvious route African nations can take to capture more value from mining is to build more processing capacity.
Indonesia has shown others the way. The country banned exports of nickel ore in 2020, forcing miners to invest in smelters.
The strategy has been so successful that Indonesia is now the world's dominant producer, exporting a wide spectrum of nickel products, including high-purity refined metal and sulphate for battery manufacturers.
African countries have taken note.
Zimbabwe has imposed export controls on lithium, Guinea on bauxite and the Democratic Republic of Congo on both cobalt and copper, all with the ambition of leveraging raw materials to expand domestic processing capacity.
However, the number of barriers to establishing a successful processing business is "vast", according to a joint analysis by consultancy CRU and the World Bank in a June report.
Power supply, infrastructure, logistics, technical capacity and policy must all be right to make what is a low-margin business profitable even when prices drop.
Indeed, these factors can be more important than the mineral reserves themselves.
Just look at Angola. It is building an aluminium smelter at the port of Barra do Dande despite having neither bauxite nor the capacity to process it into alumina, the intermediate product fed into the smelting process.
What the project does have is a deep-sea port suitable for handling raw materials and a strategic location in a free-trade zone, allowing it to benefit from shared infrastructure, favourable business rates and reliable power supplies.
CORRIDORS OF POWER
Angola also sits at the end of one of the largest infrastructure projects in Sub-Saharan Africa — one that has huge implications for the region's push to limit external power on the continent.
The Lobito Corridor will combine new and existing railway lines to link the central African Copperbelt with the Angolan port of Lobito.
The ambitious project is heavily backed by both the U.S. and Europe.
It has massive strategic significance.
The Lobito Corridor offers a Western shipping alternative to the Chinese-built TAZARA railway line running from Zambia to the Tanzanian port of Dar es Salaam.
TAZARA is the transit route for much of the region's copper and cobalt as they start their long journey to a Chinese port.
Chinese companies own and operate some of the largest copper and cobalt mines in the region, beginning a supply chain that ends in Chinese-made electric vehicles or humble air-conditioner units.
The Lobito Corridor is a direct challenge to that dominance. The project cuts freight time from Congo's mines to the sea from over a month to just one week, helping reduce risk for potential private-sector investment.
China has responded with a commitment to spend $1.4 billion to revamp TAZARA, which it financed in the 1970s.
Ultimately, the competing rail corridors, one heading west and one east, represent a potential win-win for both Congo and Zambia.
GROWTH CONDUCTORS
The Lobito Corridor, however, promises much more than a fast exit route for Africa's metals.
It is intended to be an economic booster in its own right, creating agricultural, metals and technology hubs along its 1,800-kilometre (1,120-mile) route.
Western partners in the project are investing not just in hard infrastructure but also in what the European Union describes as "soft connectivity", meaning trade facilitation, technical and vocational training, and a focus on creating local employment.
The results are already tangible in Angola, where railway infrastructure is simply being upgraded rather than built from scratch, as will be the case for the planned extension into Zambia in 2030. Upgrades create more immediate economic opportunity in the local economy.
Congo's copper and cobalt are now accompanied on their journey to Lobito by Angolan agricultural goods from the country's farming heartland in Huambo province.
Angola exported its first avocados to Europe last November thanks to an EU-funded trade logistics platform and a €50-million investment programme in sustainable agricultural chains.
This holistic approach to the Lobito Corridor offers one way out of Africa's historic resource trap.
Even building processing plants doesn't necessarily spread any wealth through the local economy if they operate as export-oriented fiscal enclaves.
Congo's copper production is now largely in the form of high-purity refined metal, but the country still exports almost all of it to China for conversion into manufactured goods.
That needs to change if Africa is to grab a larger share of its mineral revenues.
HISTORIC MINERS
Perhaps the single biggest challenge facing African countries seeking to convert mineral wealth into long-term economic growth is how to deal with their traditional workforce.
It's estimated that around 10 million people are directly involved in artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) in Africa, with many more dependent on it for subsistence.
Africans have been mining for thousands of years, and collective small-scale operations have been the norm for most of that time, particularly in rural areas with low employment prospects.
It's dangerous work, but that doesn't prevent the participation of both women and children. Fatalities are common and the environmental impact can be devastating.
The word "artisanal" implies a degree of free agency, but ASM is often more akin to bonded labour. The ore dug out of the ground is sold to middlemen at a fraction of its true value.
In conflict zones such as Congo's eastern provinces and some Sahel countries, ASM can be outright forced labour at mines controlled by insurgent groups.
Africa's historical miners operate in a dark zone thanks to colonial-era laws declaring all such "native" operations illegal.
The result is the criminalisation of millions of people, lost revenue for states and an ethical dilemma for Western companies, many of which are understandably wary of buying metal that may include ASM ore.
There are multiple efforts to "formalise" ASM by integrating the workforce into the official mining sector.
The most ambitious is in Congo, which has long been targeted by campaigners for its "blood" cobalt.
Kinshasa has tried and failed before to find ways of merging its "illegal" miners into the official sector.
But new cobalt export quota controls and enhanced powers for the mining regulator, the Entreprise Générale du Cobalt, promise better results from a new scheme launched with Eurasian Resources Group.
The irony is that if the West wants Congo's cobalt and doesn't want to rely on Chinese operators, it needs to source from the ASM sector. But the metal has to come with guarantees that it's untarnished by human rights abuses.
It's in everyone's interests to bring Africa's original miners in from the cold. Indeed, for Africa itself, it may be the single most important lever it can pull in terms of changing a blood-soaked historical narrative of exploitation.
The opinions expressed here are those of Andy Home, a columnist for Reuters.
