Africa Finance Corporation (AFC) reveals that Africa hosts an estimated US$29.5 trillion ($41.9 million) in mine site mineral value, yet captures only a fraction of the economic value embedded in this endowment.
In AFC’s latest study, it is revealed that of this total, US$8.6 trillion remains undeveloped, reflecting an under-explored continent where fragmented geological data, uneven coverage, and limited transparency continue to elevate risk perception and constrain investment.
AFC’s report believes that improving geological data availability and quality is a necessary first step to de-risk projects and unlock exploration capital.
As Mining.com.au reported, the African continent holds about 30% of the global known mineral resources, while Sub-Saharan Africa alone is estimated to produce US$2 trillion of metals required for the energy transition by 2050.
Despite the continent’s mineral endowment, Africa has not seized all the opportunities presented to the minerals-rich continent.
S&P’s World Exploration Trends (2024) revealed the combined exploration budget within the continent is just US$1.27 billion – well behind Latin America (US$3.38 billion), Canada (US$2.44 billion), Australia (US$2.2 billion), and just behind the US (US$1.62 billion).
Additionally, only 10-15% of the value generated into its economy from mineral resources is retained in Africa as a whole, underscoring an inherent need for domestic downstream processing and manufacturing.
Under-rating Africa’s potential
AFC’s study also highlights that mine site values significantly underrates Africa’s potential by failing to capture the far larger value created when minerals are processed into steel, aluminium, fertilisers, batteries and alloys.
Launched at Mining Indaba in Cape Town, the Compendium of Africa’s Strategic Minerals reframes the sector through an African development lens, placing industrialisation, infrastructure, and long-term regional demand at the centre of mineral strategy.
AFC Chief Executive Samaila Zubairu says the compendium maps full value chains and links reserves and production to processing capacity, power and transport infrastructure, and regional industrial corridors.
“Improving data transparency to de-risk exploration, lower the cost of capital, and guide smarter investment into mining and the enabling infrastructure needed for beneficiation and integrated regional value chains,” Zubairu says.
The compendium finds that mineral production, enabling infrastructure and demand rarely co-locate or align at scale. AFC says this calls for stronger regional planning anchored in Africa’s long term demand fundamentals.
The steel value chain demonstrates this misalignment, as Africa hosts world-class endowments of ferro-alloys such as manganese, chromium and nickel, and iron ore supply is entering a new growth cycle.
Yet these supply chains remain commercially tethered to Asian steel cycles rather than Africa’s own development trajectory.
AFC says the constraint is not a lack of demand, but a lack of demand anchoring, “the failure to align mineral production, processing capacity, and infrastructure investment around Africa’s long-term material needs”.
Write to Aaliyah Rogan at Mining.com.au
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