Africa must seize the global critical minerals opportunity to accelerate industrialisation, create jobs and deepen regional economic integration rather than continue exporting raw materials, International Relations and Cooperation Minister Ronald Lamola argues.
Speaking at the Ambassadorial Breakfast on Africa's Growth Through Critical Minerals event, hosted by Absa in partnership with the Department of International Relations and Cooperation, in Johannesburg, on August 7, he said Africa's vast critical mineral endowment positioned the continent at the centre of the global energy transition.
He noted that Africa possesses many of the minerals required for clean energy technologies, including platinum group metals (PGMs), copper, manganese, bauxite and graphite, making the continent indispensable to the global transition to a low-carbon economy.
"Our continent has many of the minerals that are critical to the global energy transition. These minerals are essential to technologies, ranging from solar panels and wind turbines to electric vehicles and energy storage systems. Africa is, therefore, central to the transition to a low-carbon future," Lamola said.
However, Lamola cautioned that resource abundance alone would not guarantee prosperity and said Africa must break longstanding patterns in which minerals are exported for processing elsewhere before being re-imported as higher-value products.
