Development experts have urged African leaders to take greater control of the continent’s critical mineral resources and channel them towards improving the lives of their citizens.
They warned that Africa’s vast mineral wealth faced existential threats due to rapid technological advancement, intensifying geopolitical competition, and the continent’s continued failure to industrialise.
The experts raised the concerns at the Annual Professor Alexander Adum Kwapong Lecture held at the University of Ghana, Legon.
Madam Sheila Khama, a Sustainable Development Policy Advisor, cautioned that the value of minerals such as cobalt, lithium, and nickel was determined not by their abundance underground, but by prevailing global technologies.
She explained that innovations such as man-made substitutes and seabed mining for polymetallic nodules could soon render Africa’s mineral assets “stranded.”
Ms Khama described the widespread narrative of Africa’s mineral dominance as a “false premise” that misleads policymakers into assuming the continent holds significant bargaining power in global markets.
She said since Africa lacked the industrial and technological base to process its own resources, other nations ultimately determined their value according to their industrial needs.
“The most significant challenge is our lack of an industrial ecosystem to consume what we produce,” she said, noting that African countries were largely absent from global mineral consumption charts.
“We remain suppliers, missing the opportunity for real economic transformation.”
She added that the situation was perpetuated by persistent deficits in infrastructure, energy reliability, and collaboration between academia and industry.
Madam Khama also pointed to the entrenched political issues, particularly the dominance of party politics over the politics of the nation-state, as major obstacles to long-term coherent policymaking needed to secure Africa’s mineral future.
Mr Zia Choudhury, the United Nations Resident Coordinator for Ghana, noted that Africa was central to the global energy transition but warned that without strategic policy action, the continent risked being seen merely as a supplier of raw materials rather than a strategic player.
He said Africa’s chance for green industrialisation would only materialise if countries invested in domestic industries and built integrated value chains.
Professor Nana Aba Appiah Amfo, the Vice-Chancellor, University of Ghana, emphasised the need for a shift from “mere extraction to transformation.”
She said while critical minerals offered a pathway for value creation, the continent’s experience with illegal mining and governance challenges in countries such as the Democratic Republic of Congo and Zambia illustrated how mineral wealth could become a burden.
“The future of Africa’s critical minerals lies in our choice, to either be defined by a new scramble driven by external interests or to forge a new renaissance built on African innovation, ownership, and governance,” the Vice Chancellor said.
