I’ve had the same thought looping in my head all week: Africa is sitting on a gold mine.
And I don’t mean that in a dramatic, history-book sense. I mean right now. At this exact moment, as the world races toward electric cars, artificial intelligence, renewable energy, and next-generation military technology, the minerals that make all of it possible are buried beneath African soil. From cobalt, lithium, copper, platinum, to rare earth elements. The part that unsettles me the most is that it’s still not creating real industrial jobs here at home. They are not the kinds of jobs that transform entire economies or build long-term industrial capacity. They are not positions for engineers designing advanced battery systems, or technicians operating high-tech refineries, or teams managing massive processing plants humming day and night. We dig, while others refine, manufacture, and scale.
So I asked what feels like a painfully obvious question: if Africa has the minerals, why aren’t the jobs here? The more I looked into it, the more familiar it all began to feel.
Africa Explained spoke to Dr. Fadhel Kaboub, Associate Professor of Economics at Denison University, who did not hesitate to draw a historical parallel. He told us that what we are witnessing today is “yet another scramble for raw materials from the Global South, similar to what we saw during colonial times,” adding that after independence, many African economies never fully escaped the structural trap of being providers of cheap materials and consumers of technology, while industrialized countries remained the producers of that technology.
It is hard to ignore that echo, especially when the stakes are even higher now.
Take the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which controls most of the world’s cobalt. Or Zambia and Zimbabwe, key players in copper and lithium, and South Africa, which dominates platinum production. These are not marginal resources. They sit at the heart of the global energy transition. They are minerals most of us barely notice, yet they literally power the future and we have an abundance of them right here in Africa. But here is what I have learned: extracting minerals is only the beginning. The real money, and the real jobs, lie in refining them and transforming them into battery components, processors, and other high-value industrial inputs. Most of that still happens outside the continent. On paper, Africa’s resource base looks like leverage and a strategic advantage at a time when the world urgently needs exactly what it has. In practice, that leverage is more complicated.
As I spoke with experts across the continent, connecting the dots to understand the full picture, I realized that this new scramble for critical minerals has raised serious concerns about how renewed engagement with Africa is being structured. There have been discussions around “security for minerals” arrangements involving the United States and governments such as the DRC and Rwanda. Critics argue that some of these framework’s risk reinforcing extractive patterns, where access to resources is secured without sufficient emphasis on building local industries. The concern is not just about individual agreements, but about the precedent they may set and how they could shape future mineral negotiations. For a continent still grappling with the economic consequences of colonialism, that is an unsettling prospect.
I also discovered something interesting. After COVID-19 and the Russia-Ukraine war disrupted global supply chains, something shifted. Governments in the United States and across the European Union woke up to how dependent they were on external suppliers, particularly China, for critical inputs. Reducing that dependence quickly became a national security priority. With China already dominating much of the refining space, the US, the EU, and even Gulf countries are now scrambling to secure alternative supply chains.
If this feels like déjà vu, it is because we have been here before, with cocoa, coffee, oil, and other natural resources. Now it is critical minerals. The most intense competition, however, is between the United States and China.
Dr. Ross Harvey, Director of Research at Good Governance Africa, explained it this way:
“Africa has rich geological deposits in an array of minerals that everybody in the world needs, especially as we attempt to transition to a lower carbon future. Much of the race for Africa’s minerals is a function of geopolitical fragmentation. Part of this was precipitated by Covid, so European and North American countries are trying to reduce their dependence on China and gain direct access to Africa’s resources.”
Here lies the uncomfortable contrast: while the US and Europe have only recently intensified their scramble to secure supply, China spent decades investing not only in mining access but also in mastering refining technology. Controlling mines is one thing; controlling refining capacity at the levels required for high-tech manufacturing is another. That capability now gives China significant influence over global supply chains. And while the US often approaches the issue through security-driven frameworks, China has taken a different diplomatic route, including removing tariffs on goods from 53 African countries. Ziyanda Stuurman, Insights and Advocacy Advisor at Africa Practice, described this move to Africa Explained as “soft diplomatic power” intended to present China as a reliable, long-term trading partner that does not abruptly impose conditions or withdraw support. Whether that narrative holds over time is open to debate, but strategically, it matters. All of this geopolitical manoeuvring may feel distant, yet it carries very real implications for African economies.
What struck me most in speaking to experts is how complex the solution actually is. A unified African negotiating position sounds powerful in theory, but national interests do not always align neatly with continental ambitions. Each country must balance immediate fiscal pressures with long-term industrial goals. Still, clear themes are emerging around what stronger mineral agreements could look like. These include mandatory local processing, meaningful beneficiation, and infrastructure investment embedded directly into contracts. In other words, if minerals are leaving, something lasting should remain behind for local communities.
Stuurman emphasized how important this shift is:
“The ideal scenario over the next one or two AU summits, and certainly over the next few years, is that we reach a collective understanding of what a minimum trade deal should entail. China’s long-term infrastructure approach, whether airports, bridges, ports, roads, or rail, should be baked into agreements with African governments or regional bodies to ensure that relationships are not extractive and exploitative.”
Even leaders such as South African President Cyril Ramaphosa have publicly stressed the need to move beyond exporting raw materials and toward processing and exporting higher-value products. And so even if the conversation is happening, the real question is whether it will lead to structural change.
I keep returning to this central point: the world urgently needs Africa’s minerals. That urgency creates leverage. But leverage only works if it is used strategically. If we continue shipping out raw materials, advanced factories will be built elsewhere, engineers will be trained elsewhere, and patents will be registered elsewhere. Once again, we may be told that we “missed the window.”
This moment could become another chapter in a familiar story, in which Africa supplies raw inputs while others capture the higher-value stages of production. But it could also mark a turning point, where mineral wealth is used to build domestic industries and reshape the continent’s place in global value chains.
The scramble has already begun. The difference this time is that the outcome is not yet fixed. And that, perhaps, is the most important detail of all.
Until next time.
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