Global demand for critical minerals continues to grow, with the International Energy Agency predicting graphite and nickel demand to double by 2040, and cobalt and rare earths to increase 50-60%. The agency also predicts a fivefold increase in lithium demand, while copper is projected to grow by approximately 30%.
At the moment, and for the foreseeable future, supply is lagging demand, and the gap between the two continues to widen. As demand for critical minerals grows, spurred by the growing defence narrative and drive for energy security, the supply side is becoming ever more important.
Africa’s role in global supply
Africa plays a significant role in critical minerals supply. The Brookings Institute outlines the share of global production and mineral reserves across multiple critical minerals where a significant portion of global supply comes from the African continent.
Africa accounts for 92% of global platinum group metals production, 56% of cobalt, 54% of manganese, 36% of chromium, and 22% of global vanadium production.
Veronica Bolton Smith, Chief Executive Officer of the Critical Minerals Africa Group (CMAG) sat down with Mining.com.au to share her thoughts on the state of the industry and growing influence of the critical minerals thematic, following this year’s Mining Indaba.
“Critical minerals have moved from being a mining topic to being a geopolitical currency,” Bolton Smith says.
Strategic partnerships and geopolitics
She notes that the message coming from the industry across Africa, as well as global partners, is that we are coming into Africa’s critical mineral moment now and that the continent plays a key role in the global supply story.
“Africa is no longer being courted only as a source of ore, but as a potential co-architect of secure, resilient supply chains, if the continent can lock in the right enabling conditions.”
CMAG is a platform bringing together African governments, the private sector, investors, and other global stakeholders across the critical minerals space to help accelerate the development, investment-readiness, and visibility of African critical minerals projects.
Their work focuses on ensuring that Africa has a “seat at the table” in both planning and execution work across critical minerals supply chains and government policies.
Bolton Smith notes that there are several big realities that the industry needs to address in the global race to secure critical minerals.
“The minerals race is accelerating, and Africa sits inside the ‘strategic perimeter’”.
She notes how major global powers are working to de-risk their supply chains through strategic partnerships and deals, citing the US signing critical minerals investment frameworks with countries like Uzbekistan to secure both upstream and midstream access to key minerals. Bolton Smith also highlights the cooperation between Brazil and India as a signal of alternative pathways and alliances in the race to secure critical minerals
It is against this backdrop of growing nationalism and strategic alliances where Africa’s role is significant.
“The Democratic Republic of the Congo’s (DRC) tantalum/coltan supply is being pulled directly into strategic diplomacy, even amid conflict risks, underscoring how security, governance, and minerals are now entangled,” Bolton Smith says.
CMAG affirms that Africa is already central to the global strategy of securing critical minerals, but “the question is whether African countries can convert attention into better deal terms, better development outcomes, and real industrial capacity, not just higher volumes.”
Value addition and downstreaming
Alongside a broader global push for domestic minerals value chains that we’re seeing, especially out of the US, Africa needs to continue to push for beneficiation and down-streaming.
While moving downstream and providing more value-add to the continent’s mineral riches could provide significant benefits to the African continent, “the hard part is delivery,” Bolton Smith says.
There are still significant constraints across jurisdictions in Africa, including infrastructure and policy.
“Processing needs power, and lots of it,” Bolton Smith says.
In addition to energy reliability and cost, Bolton Smith notes that logistics and trade friction, regulatory clarity and fiscal stability, and a bankable industrial policy are all constraints preventing Africa’s transition downstream.
Partnerships that deliver
Referencing Mining Indaba’s 2026 slogan of progress through partnerships, Bolton Smith notes that the real partnerships that matter and that will make a difference are ones that “are shifting from memoranda of understanding (MOUs) to bankable, integrated deals”.
She cites the need to move past generic cooperation pledges toward real deals that link “resource access and infrastructure, processing and offtake, skills and technology transfer, and traceability and market access”.
Africa as a swing region
Bolton Smith, with her role at CMAG, makes a strong case for Africa’s decisive role in the global supply chain for critical minerals.
“As competition intensifies, Africa can become the swing region that determines who can scale defence, electronics, and advanced manufacturing, but only if projects are investable and governable,” Bolton Smith says.
“The DRC example shows what happens when strategic interest collides with instability: the minerals remain vital, but the risk premium explodes.”
With regards to the value-add goals for the continent, CMAG has outlined seven key pillars for what sound frameworks and an enabling environment looks like.
Bolton Smith outlines these as 1) stable and legible fiscal regimes; 2) fast, trusted permitting and licencing; 3) power, water, and industrial land; 4) trade and logistics competitiveness; 5) local content that builds capability (not just compliance); 6) bankable project structures for processing; and 7) integrity, traceability, and ASM formalisation.
The development of Africa’s downstream industry depends on many factors, as Molebogeng Mazibuko, Associate Vice President and Mining Lead at Africa Finance Corporation outlined in part one of this series.
Most importantly, she cites local ownership as a key factor. “As much as we want to bring the value downstream, the products are generally not owned by Africans, so it is not up to us to necessarily determine whether we can manage the mid- or downstream onshore,” Mazibuko says.
It is a fine balance between foreign partnerships and domestic beneficiation to ensure that Africa is able to capture the full economic, social, and industrial benefits of its resource endowments.
Danakali: Partnerships in Africa and beyond
Danakali (NSX:DNK) is an Australian company that has forged strong relationships in East Africa, with a focus on projects in Eritrea, in addition to Saudi Arabia and Australia.
The company advanced the Colluli Potash Project in Eritrea through development and successfully securing an offtake agreement and the project funding facility necessary for the project’s development.
Danakali eventually exited the Colluli Project in 2023, but not before forging strong relationships with both the Africa Finance Corporation and Afreximbank.
The partnership between AFC, Afreximbank, and Danakali exemplifies the type of ‘bankable, integrated deals’ that Africa’s critical minerals narrative demands.
By securing US$200 million in senior debt financing, underwritten with export credit support, AFC and Afreximbank moved beyond MOUs into tangible project execution, highlighting how African development financing can help to enable projects to unlock mineral wealth and also contribute to local economic development, governance credibility, and industrial capacity.
Danakali is currently exploring new opportunities in Eritrea, made possible by the strong relationships already in place with key African stakeholders.
Write to Amy Rotman at Mining.com.au
Images: Mining.com.au, Danakali
