Critical minerals are essential to the energy transition, forming the foundation of low-carbon technologies such as electric vehicles (EVs), energy storage systems and photovoltaic cells. This report focuses on critical minerals found in the Southern African Region (SAR) – including copper, cobalt, graphite, lithium, manganese, chromium, platinum group metals (PGMs) and vanadium – and analyses their value chains across 10 SAR countries: Angola, Botswana, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Madagascar, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
Many SAR countries have higher reserves-to-production ratios than global peers, allowing longer production at current rates and underscoring their role in global supply. Despite these large reserves, exploration is underfinanced in SAR countries, attracting less than 10% of total global spending. Despite SAR’s mineral wealth, financing challenges hinder the development of its value chains.
This paper “Securing Minerals for the Energy Transition: Finance for Southern Africa” by the World Economic Forum outlines practical solutions to accelerate investment in Southern Africa’s clean energy and critical minerals value chains. Furthermore, it identifies the regulatory, institutional and policy enablers that will de-risk the sector and encourage private capital participation by providing a toolbox for governments, development finance institutions and industry partners to work collectively to close investment gaps.
Access the paper here
