Determined to usher a new lease of life for African economies, Nigeria and the African Development Bank (AfDB) have called for stronger African control over the continent’s vast mineral resources, advocating data sovereignty, regional collaboration and strategic financing as essential to ensuring that mineral-rich countries in Africa derive greater economic value from their natural assets.

Addressing the Ministerial Forum on Critical Minerals, Value Chain and Beneficiation: Pathways for African Transformation, held under the auspices of the African Development Bank (AfDB) in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, Nigerian Solid Minerals Development Minister Dele Alake urged fellow ministers from Africa’s mineral-producing countries to adopt a strategic approach to interdependence and regional cooperation, stressing that the continent’s vast mineral wealth could generate far greater benefits if countries worked together rather than pursuing isolated national approaches.

As one of Africa’s mineral-rich countries, Nigeria has increasingly positioned itself at the forefront of efforts to promote value addition, local processing and greater African ownership of the continent’s mineral development agenda.

In his welcome remarks, the President of the African Development Bank, Dr Sidi Ould Tah, highlighted the paradoxes confronting Africa despite its enormous mineral wealth.

He pointed to the contradiction between Africa’s vast size and resources and its limited global influence, noting that the continent’s substantial deposits of critical minerals have yet to translate into commensurate gains in Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

Dr Tah also identified the paradox of opportunity without adequate finance, reflected in the low levels of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) flowing into Africa.

Both leaders agreed that African countries must move beyond the traditional extraction of raw minerals and develop concrete strategies to take full control of their natural assets.

“While the mantra of value addition has ushered in an era of economic independence for mineral-producing nations, we need concrete actionable strategies to take charge and be in full control of our natural assets to ensure total economic freedom,” Alake said.

Alake, who is the pioneering Chair of the Africa Mineral Strategy Group (AMSG), also highlighted Nigeria’s role in advancing a common continental approach to mineral development, acknowledging the contributions of the group’s more than 30-member countries in repositioning African mineral-producing nations around the principle of value addition.

However, he stressed that African countries must also achieve sovereignty over the data and technical systems used to assess their mineral wealth.

He described the longstanding reliance of African countries on the Australia-based Joint Ore Reserves Committee (JORC) as the standard for estimating and publicly reporting mineral exploration results as outdated.

“For the overall interest of the continent, and to efficiently and effectively safeguard its resources, Africa should take charge of the coding mechanisms utilised to assess its mineral assets,” Alake said.

He advocated the adoption of the Pan African Resource Reporting Code (PARC), a home-grown framework established by the Africa Minerals Development Centre (AMDC) for the public reporting of mineral and energy resources.

According to the Minister, PARC offers a framework that promotes transparency, consistency and ethical competency certification across Africa’s mining and energy sectors, while taking into account the peculiarities, qualities, environmental conditions and characteristics of the continent’s mineral resources.

For Nigeria, the push for a continental reporting system is particularly significant as the country seeks to better define, document and develop its mineral assets while strengthening its position in the global critical minerals economy.

Alake also called for stronger regional cooperation to address the enormous financial and infrastructural requirements of developing Africa’s mineral resources through the creation of a West African minerals processing hub and corridor modelled on the Lobito Corridor.

The proposed corridor would stretch from Lagos to Dakar, with countries leveraging their comparative advantages to serve as processing hubs for specific minerals. Such an arrangement, he said, would reduce the financial burden on individual countries, lower costs, facilitate collaborative trading and enable participating nations to share both the risks and rewards of mineral development.

The proposal is in line with Nigeria’s broader strategic interest in positioning itself as a major regional centre for mineral processing, industrial development and value addition.

He further highlighted the challenge of trade fragmentation, noting that intra-African trade accounts for only about 16 per cent, compared with approximately 60 per cent among Asian countries and 70 per cent among European countries.

The ministerial forum resolved that African countries must adopt a concerted and results-oriented approach to critical minerals policy and governance while pursuing integrated regional infrastructure organised around corridors, value-chain development and capital mobilisation.

These commitments were captured in the Abidjan Declaration, which placed financing at the centre of efforts to transform Africa’s solid minerals sector.

Under the Declaration, the African Development Bank pledged to deploy its financial instruments, capital-structuring and mobilisation capacity, as well as technical expertise, to support mineral-producing countries and catalyse public and private investment in Africa’s minerals sector.

The Declaration further committed to addressing the shortage of funding for the sector by reducing risks associated with strategic projects, enabling the financing of critical infrastructure, supporting the development of bankable projects and accelerating the creation of competitive, inclusive and sustainable value chains in critical minerals.

It also urged mineral-producing countries to develop national and regional capacities capable of creating opportunities for project financing and generating sustainable, high-quality local value and employment.

For Nigeria, the outcome of the Abidjan forum reinforces the country’s emerging role as a leading voice in the push for a new African minerals architecture—one built on greater control of mineral data, domestic and regional value addition, shared infrastructure, strategic financing and stronger cooperation among mineral-rich countries.

The forum brought together more than 20 ministers responsible for mining, energy, industry, natural resources and the green economy, as well as representatives of the African Development Bank, the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank), the US Export-Import Bank and mining companies from Germany, Canada and the United States, among others.

At the conclusion of the deliberations, participants reaffirmed the need for stronger African cooperation and greater control over the continent’s mineral resources as essential pathways to ensuring that Africa’s mineral wealth delivers broad-based and sustainable economic transformation.

•PHOTO: Nigeria’s Minister of Solid Minerals Development, Mr. Henry Dele Alake and Dr. Sidi Ould Tah, President of the African Development Bank Group at the Ministerial Forum on Critical Minerals, Value Chain and Beneficiation: Pathways for African Transformation held in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire

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