Africa holds an estimated $29.5 trillion in mine-site mineral value, accounting for nearly 20 per cent of global mineral wealth, yet captures only a small share of the economic value embedded in this vast endowment, a new report by the Africa Finance Corporation (AFC) has revealed.
The study, released on Monday and titled Compendium of Africa’s Strategic Minerals, was launched at the Mining Indaba in Cape Town. It reframes Africa’s mineral sector through a development-driven lens, placing industrialisation, infrastructure and long-term regional demand at the heart of mineral strategy.
According to the AFC, about $8.6 trillion of Africa’s mineral wealth remains undeveloped, largely due to fragmented geological data, uneven coverage and limited transparency. These gaps, the report said, heighten risk perception and continue to constrain exploration and investment across the continent.
The study stressed that improving the availability and quality of geological data is a critical first step in de-risking mining projects and unlocking exploration capital.
It also noted that traditional mine-site valuations significantly understate Africa’s true mineral potential because they exclude the value added when raw minerals are processed into steel, aluminium, fertilisers, batteries and industrial alloys.
“When measured at the point of industrial use, Africa’s mineral endowment expands by an order of magnitude, revealing substantial latent value,” the report stated.
Launching the Compendium, AFC President and Chief Executive Officer, Samaila Zubairu, said the initiative was designed to convert Africa’s mineral endowment into tangible development outcomes.
“Today, AFC is proud to launch the Compendium of Africa’s Strategic Minerals, an initiative to reframe the sector through an African lens and convert endowment into execution pathways for our collective prosperity,” Zubairu said.
He explained that the report maps full mineral value chains, linking reserves and production to processing capacity, power and transport infrastructure, as well as regional industrial corridors, to improve data transparency, lower capital costs and guide smarter investment into beneficiation.
The Compendium found that mineral production, enabling infrastructure and demand rarely align at scale across Africa, calling for stronger regional planning anchored in the continent’s long-term demand fundamentals.
Using the steel value chain as an example, the report noted that while Africa hosts world-class deposits of manganese, chromium, nickel and iron ore, its supply chains remain tied to Asian demand cycles rather than Africa’s own development needs.
This exposure, the report warned, has proven economically costly. The slowdown in Asian steel demand—linked to China’s property downturn—has triggered shocks across African mineral markets.
In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, cobalt production quotas have been introduced to manage oversupply and falling prices. South Africa has seen primary steelmaking capacity shut down amid weak domestic demand and high costs, while major manganese operations in Gabon have periodically suspended production due to softer alloy demand from Asia.
“These outcomes are occurring even as Africa continues to expand transport networks, power systems, housing and industrial capacity that require these materials,” the report noted, adding that the real challenge lies in aligning mineral production, processing capacity and infrastructure investment around Africa’s own long-term material needs.
The AFC report placed infrastructure at the centre of mineral strategy, describing it not as a passive enabler but as the system that links raw materials, processing and demand. Power cost and reliability, transport connectivity and access to industrial land were identified as decisive factors in making mineral beneficiation viable.
To support this, the Compendium mapped mineral deposits alongside railways, ports, power hubs and transmission networks to identify where regional value chains can realistically be developed. It called for targeted investments in shared rail corridors and cross-border power transmission, particularly in mineral-rich regions.
The report also highlighted infrastructure’s role in Africa’s competitiveness in an era of green industrialisation, noting that clean energy, efficient logistics and integrated corridors such as the Lobito Corridor could reduce carbon intensity and improve access to markets demanding low-carbon and traceable supply chains.
The study pointed to emerging momentum across the continent, including Angola’s development of one of the world’s largest high-grade rare earth magnet metal deposits, Mozambique’s growing role as a graphite and anode materials hub, advancing battery-grade manganese sulphate projects in Southern Africa, and the resumption of uranium production in Namibia and Malawi in 2024–25.is this a business news or politics news???
