The US International Development Finance Corporation has committed $62.8 million to rare earth mining projects across four African countries, stepping in where private capital has refused to go. The bulk of that money, roughly $50 million, is headed to a single project in South Africa that plans to extract critical minerals from old mine waste.
Why nobody else is writing these checks
The DFC’s funding spans projects in Malawi, Angola, Madagascar, and South Africa. The centerpiece is the Phalaborwa project in South Africa, which takes an unusual approach to mining by reprocessing gypsum waste from a legacy mine to pull out rare earth oxides like neodymium, praseodymium, dysprosium, and terbium.
Those four elements are the workhorses of the clean energy transition. Neodymium and praseodymium go into the permanent magnets that make EV motors and wind turbines spin. Dysprosium and terbium make those magnets work at high temperatures without losing their magnetic properties.
DFC executives were blunt about the market reality in statements to Reuters on August 19. Private capital simply isn’t showing up for African rare earth ventures right now.
