UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Surging global demand for critical minerals should be “a once-in-a-lifetime chance” for resource-rich countries in Africa and elsewhere to harness wealth and improve life for millions — but it has too easily triggered violence and poverty, the head of the World Trade Organization said Wednesday.WTO Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala warned the U.N. Security Council that “critical minerals are increasingly viewed as strategic assets, not just commodities, and a major source of interstate competition.”Major economies are racing to get supplies of the minerals needed for technology from smartphones to fighter jets to use as leverage, she said. That means a real risk that conflicts will rise and developing economies will find themselves locked into the lowest level of production, while “the highest value jobs, technologies and profits go elsewhere,” she said.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said competition for lithium, cobalt, nickel and rare earths has seen armed groups reap the benefits of illegal mining and mineral smuggling in eastern Congo — “and civilians have paid the price of ongoing conflict.”In Sudan, he told the council, the bitter fight between government and paramilitary forces for political and territorial dominance has been fueled by the exploitation of natural resources, especially gold and gum arabic used in printing, paints, glues, cosmetics and other industries, “leading to atrocities and displacing millions.”
