A new scramble for Africa is underway. It is not marked by warships or colonial flags, but by battery supply chains, green transition targets, and high-level trade delegations. The race is for lithium, cobalt, graphite, manganese, platinum group metals and rare earth elements — the minerals powering electric vehicles, renewable energy systems and digital infrastructure….
As the world shifts to clean energy, minerals such as lithium, cobalt and manganese have become as important as oil once was. Africa holds large reserves of these critical minerals. Yet they are mostly exported as raw materials, returning as expensive green technologies made in factories overseas. South Africa’s G20 presidency set up a new…
Copper is a foundational material used in the technology industry South Africa’s potential to compete more effectively as a producer of critical minerals used in the technology sector is hampered by structural inefficiencies and policy uncertainty, leading to investments flowing to other countries where investors perceive it is easier to do business. This is according…
In recent months, a quiet yet unmistakably strategic shift has been underway across Africa’s mineral-rich heartlands. The United States, emerging from a decade of cautious engagement, is now decisively intensifying its diplomatic and economic foothold in Tanzania, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DR Congo). This resurgence is neither accidental nor merely transactional; it…
United Nations — Although Africa holds more than 30 per cent of the world’s critical green minerals–including cobalt, lithium, manganese, and rare earth elements vital for building batteries, wind turbines and solar panels– this has not translated into prosperity for the continent. At the Africa Climate Summit 2025 held in Addis Ababa in September 2025,…
A US-based advocacy group has filed a lawsuit in Washington, accusing Apple of using minerals linked to conflict and human rights abuses in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda despite the iPhone maker’s denials. An Apple logo and a computer motherboard appear in this illustration created on 25 August 2025. Image credit: Reuters/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File…
African and European leaders ended a summit in Luanda on Tuesday with new cooperation pledges on trade, minerals and migration but acknowledged that the two-day gathering produced no major breakthroughs. The summit brought together 80 delegations for negotiations on trade, minerals, migration and security. The final communiqué listed commitments to strengthen commercial ties, expand cooperation…
European and African leaders are meeting in Angola for a summit focused on trade and renewing the relationship between African and European countries that have been tested by growing influence of Russia, China and the United States. Continuing his African tour, French President Emmanuel Macron is in Luanda to join nearly 80 EU and African…
Traditional painted houses overlooking sea ice in the Old Nuuk district near the Sermitsiaq mountain in Nuuk, Greenland, on Thursday, April 3, 2025. Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images A global scramble to exploit the Arctic’s untapped resources appears to be kicking into overdrive. In a push to break China’s mineral dominance, countries around the…
Critical minerals such as lithium, cobalt, nickel, copper, rare earth elements, and platinum group metals are essential for modern technologies. They are key to industries ranging from electronics and telecommunications to renewable energy, defence, and aerospace systems. The global demand for these minerals has been growing, as has the competition for them. The supply and…
