The global energy transition has thrust critical minerals to the centre of 21st-century geopolitics — and Africa, home to an estimated 35% of the world’s reserves, sits on a geological jackpot.
The continent holds more than half of global cobalt, manganese and platinum group metal reserves. Yet despite being a top source of critical mineral production, Africa remains trapped in a familiar, costly pattern: exporting unprocessed ore while other regions capture the high-value midstream and downstream activities that anchor global supply chains. This represents a strategic failure that demands urgent, co-ordinated regional action.
The economic reality is stark. China maintains a dominant presence in the processing of African critical minerals, refining about 35% of the world’s nickel, 50%-70% of lithium and cobalt, and nearly 90% of rare earth elements.
This structural imbalance means Africa is subsidising the industrial capacity of its competitors. The continent has repeatedly failed to leverage commodity booms — from the oil shocks of the 1970s to China’s resource appetite in the 2000s — because its economies have remained peripheral to global value chains (GVCs), their industrial ambitions stunted by fragmentation.
The current global trade environment makes this complacency even costlier. As the world shifts from an integrated trading system to a more fractured one, as recently observed by Anglo American CEO Duncan Wanblad, the window for African nations to move beyond extraction is closing.
Processing and manufacturing are becoming concentrated in geopolitical blocs, making it harder for individual African states to compete. Wanblad argued that the world is becoming less globalised.
The cost of fragmentation
The question facing Africa is not merely one of global demand but of continental criticality. For nations such as South Africa and its neighbours, the task is to convert their mineral endowment into industrial capacity without compromising environmental responsibility.
The economic logic is undeniable: fragmented, country-by-country strategies cannot generate the scale or competitiveness required for meaningful beneficiation.
The economic logic is undeniable: fragmented, country-by-country strategies cannot generate the scale or competitiveness required for meaningful beneficiation.
Regarding manganese, South Africa and Gabon supply a substantial share of global demand, yet both remain confined to the low value end of the chain. These two nations, alongside Australia, accounted for about 74% of global output in 2023. Manganese is critical to the steel industry, which consumes up to 90% of all production, underpinning strategic sectors from infrastructure and transport to defence and renewable energy.
Demand is set to surge further as the transition away from fossil fuels accelerates. Wind turbines alone require an estimated 6.5-million tonnes of manganese, and electric vehicle batteries about 9.2-million tonnes. To assume that market forces will resolve the structural imbalances is fanciful. Entering global value chains demands intentional policy design backed by robust public–private partnerships.
A continental compact — the Airbus model
Africa holds more than 30% of the world’s mineral reserves. If treated as a collective strategic asset, these resources could underpin a continental industrial strategy. The Airbus model offers a compelling analogy. European governments overcame national rivalries to create a shared aerospace champion through a public–private partnership, pooling resources and capacity to compete globally.
Africa must adopt a similar approach by building a co-ordinated value chain that spans exploration, refining, component manufacturing, and advanced technologies. This is not resource nationalism; it is strategic pragmatism. By pooling demand, financing, and capacity, African states can finally achieve the scale needed to attract investment into complex downstream industries, such as battery precursor manufacturing.
The narrative about investing in Africa has already shifted. Democratic institutions have strengthened, macroeconomic management has improved, and growth gaps with China have narrowed sharply to less than 1%. The continent’s growth drivers are increasingly endogenous: a rising middle class, rapid population expansion and soaring electricity demand.
Africa’s window of opportunity is widening. But mineral wealth alone will not deliver prosperity. Only a unified, regionally integrated strategy can move the continent from passive supplier to influential player in the global energy transition. This regional co-operation must stimulate a positive feedback loop: a flourishing economy reinforces investments across the entire value chain, boosting extraction efficiency and augmenting the overall supply of critical minerals.
The task for African leaders is clear: convert political stability into economic synergy. If they do, critical minerals could become the backbone of a new era of industrialisation, one in which value is created in Africa, not exported from it.
• Mabasa, an executive manager in the office of the deputy mineral resources & petroleum minister, is co-chair of the Brics Youth Council.
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