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Africa needs better transport infrastructure and energy supplies to benefit from its critical minerals, a new International Energy Agency report said.
Countries also need greater resources for more complex processing, which is increasingly concentrated in a small handful of global players. Forecasts based on announced or existing projects still only put Africa’s contribution of refined materials at 4% of global market value by 2040, according to the IEA.
Globally, the supply of critical minerals continues to accelerate rapidly, with some of the greatest increases in new mining projects and developments in Africa.
DR Congo represents around 70% of global mined cobalt, and Africa as a whole is home to 11% of global lithium output and 17% of that of copper — reflecting a $50 billion market value for the continent.
