According to the US Department of Energy, there are fifty minerals that are “critical”—in that they not only serve an essential function in the technologies of the future but are also at a high risk of supply-chain disruption.
That risk is due to a number of factors, but one glaring reason is the limited availability or mining of these minerals in the United States. That is increasingly problematic as demand for these minerals rises, considering the role they play in building a green economy globally.
In contrast, across the Atlantic, Africa is home to over 30 percent of the world’s known reserves of critical minerals. While international interest and investment in the African critical-minerals industry have been lagging, it is rapidly picking up; this is welcome news for resource-rich African nations.
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But history shows that mining interest and investment—even if welcome—can have inadvertent negative effects. In recent years, mines in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Zambia, and South Africa have been found to be polluting waterways, contributing to acid rain, and poisoning residents. Thus, the US public and private sectors should develop strategies surrounding mining projects that ensure African workers’ health is protected, the environment is not damaged, and the opinions of local communities are sought out, heard, and respected.
Acknowledge the checkered history of mining in Africa
It is important for mining companies and foreign governments to be cognizant of the historical context that surrounds the African mining industry.
For example, in South Africa in the nineteenth century, the discovery of diamonds and gold brought Africans and Europeans alike to mining areas such as the Witwatersrand and mining towns such as Kimberley. After the initial boom, the South African government passed the Natives Land Act in 1913, which restricted Black Africans from buying or occupying land outside of specified areas, except as employees. This policy restricted many Africans from benefiting from the proceeds of mining minerals, and for these people, their main access to any financial gain from the mines came only from working as miners.
While the legislation was repealed in 1991—and others like it are firmly in Africa’s past—it created the conditions for a variety of socioeconomic challenges, including poverty, inequality, and landlessness. Thus, as the US public and private sectors look to get more involved on the continent with mining projects, they should integrate into their strategies a plan for increasing economic opportunity for local communities.
The US government seems to be headed in this direction already with its support for and investment in the Lobito Corridor project, which aims to update the infrastructure along an economic route stretching from the DRC and Zambia to an Angolan port in order to improve the flow of mining-related trade and also to create jobs for local communities. Concerns still remain, but this form of holistic engagement is essential to ensuring mutual prosperity in mining projects.
Don’t exacerbate the “resource curse”
Many African countries have been associated with a “resource curse,” a term that refers to the failure of many resource-rich countries to fully benefit from their natural resources.
For example, Cabo Delgado, a small province in Mozambique’s north, is one of the country’s poorest regions, despite the region’s many natural resources. This has led many in Cabo Delgado to feel marginalized and angry at the central government. A 2011 discovery of a massive natural gas field off the northeastern coast of Mozambique further exacerbated this dissatisfaction. Specifically, youth in the region felt sidelined as foreigners and Mozambicans from elsewhere in the country benefited from the jobs and wealth associated with the discovery.
As the government formalized the mining sector and centralized control of it, artisanal miners were displaced. A widely held sense of injustice gave rise to an Islamist militant group, Mozambique’s al-Shabaab, which took advantage of these grievances to gain popularity among youth in the region. The activities of various armed groups in Cabo Delgado have resulted in around five thousand deaths and the displacement of 582,000 people since 2017.
In conducting mining projects on the continent, the US public and private sector should add to their strategies specific plans to ensure that the benefits of natural-resource endowment reach local communities.
Botswana provides a positive example. In recent years, the country—one of the world’s leading producers of diamonds and also among the least corrupt on the African continent—has developed a “pro-equity based extractive sector strategy,” taking revenues from extractive sectors and investing them in health and education infrastructure and also into long-term savings through an asset fund. There are also various mechanisms and institutions set up to prevent or catch corruption, such as a constitutionally independent body in charge of cases of corruption. Botswana shows that strong business and the fight against corruption are perfectly compatible.
As part of any strategy, US stakeholders should support African countries in their anti-corruption endeavors and empower human-rights organizations that risk much to protect the resources of these countries and ensure benefits from mining reach local communities. Doing so would encourage African countries to take corruption issues seriously and, in the long run, would create a more attractive environment for sustainable investments. That contradicts the naive belief of some people—such as Israeli businessman Dan Gertler, who was sanctioned by the Trump administration for what it called “corrupt mining and oil deals” in the DRC (he has denied wrongdoing)—that lifting sanctions would be a way to bring back foreign investors.
Strategize for stability
Over time, mismanaged mining projects have contributed to instability, violence, and conflict across Africa.
That dynamic can be seen not only in the Mozambique case but also in Kivu, a region in the DRC’s east. The DRC is central to the production of several critical minerals. For example, as much as 70 percent of global cobalt comes from the DRC. A conflict has gripped the region for almost three decades, and armed groups have wrestled control of mining areas to finance their operations. The DRC, Rwanda, Uganda, and China have often put their interests ahead of those of the residents, who are hoping to see their quality of life improve. Currently, six million people are internally displaced within the DRC, and since the start of the conflict in 1996, six million people have been killed.
With this history in mind, US mining companies with projects on the continent must strategize on how to limit the role mining plays in exacerbating conflicts and tensions. They can do that by bringing more of the supply chain—specifically, value-adding stages of critical-mineral processing—to the continent.
Industrializing the mineral sector in Africa
Historically, mining in Africa has been exploited by foreign partners. China, for example, controls 80 percent of the world’s raw mineral refining and owns fifteen of the seventeen cobalt mining operations in the DRC.
But the US public and private sector can change this status quo by bringing more of the value-adding stages of critical-mineral processing to the African continent, rather than extracting the minerals and bringing them immediately overseas for processing. Not only would this appeal to local populations—as it would encourage industrialization—but employing this different strategy would offer the United States a comparative advantage over China.
A strategy that brings value-adding steps of the value chain to the continent should promote local job creation, prioritize environmental protection in areas with high floral and animal biodiversity, and protect workers’ health. It should also prioritize the deployment of cleaner mining techniques (including those mobilizing artificial intelligence) and encourage countries to adopt a tax that allows for a more fair and just distribution of revenues from mining.
Economic communities—such as the Southern African Development Community—should also play a role in promoting regional value chains. Through such groupings, countries should take advantage of opportunities to share information and data, build capacities, and harmonize legal frameworks.
Stakeholders from the United States must remember that this is about more than curbing Chinese and Russian influence on the continent; rather, it is about avoiding past wrongdoings on the continent, by supporting local communities and preventing mining operations from contributing to various forms of instability and conflict.
But there’s also a bigger picture to keep in mind: By getting mining investment right, the United States can set a new precedent for its collaboration with African countries in other areas, such as in health, security, and technology.
Rama Yade is senior director of the Atlantic Council’s Africa Center and senior fellow for the Europe Center. She is also a professor of African affairs at Mohammed VI Polytechnic University in Morocco and at Sciences Po Paris.
Sibi Nyaoga is a program assistant for the Atlantic Council’s Africa Center where he supports the center’s work on critical minerals and migration.
Read the article originally published by the Atlantic Council on Aug. 14, 2024. It is republished with permission.
