Africa cannot afford to regard regional cooperation and beneficiation as secondary concerns. Continued negotiation by fragmented units risks creating an inconsistent framework of export restrictions and incentives that undermine investor confidence, while failing to develop shared infrastructure and industrial capacity.
However, if leaders approach projects such as the Lobito Corridor as templates for aligning geology, logistics, and industrial policy at a regional level, Africa can progress towards influencing global value chains rather than merely supplying them. This strategic direction is advocated by Shirley Webber, Managing Principal and Coverage Head for Resources and Energy at Absa CIB, and Stephen Seaka, Managing Executive for Public Sector Growth Capital Solutions at Absa CIB. They emphasize the importance of regional corridors in connecting Africa’s dispersed mineral resources and highlight the successful reduction of transport time along the Lobito Corridor, illustrating its potential as an organizing principle for industrial strategy. Infrastructure that facilitates ore movement, alongside the systems governing it, inherently operates beyond national boundaries. The emergence of coordinated corridors presents an opportunity to reconcile regional geology with predominantly national industrial policies.
Webber and Seaka outline key areas of regional cooperation, including tariff harmonization, streamlined customs procedures, rail and port concessions, environmental and social standards, power governance, dispute-resolution mechanisms, and regulatory approaches to public-private partnerships. Regional beneficiation involves optimizing where activities occur within the value chain and sequencing operations effectively. Processing steps, such as crushing, refining, and assembly, require varying levels of power, water, expertise, and trade exposure, often making duplication unnecessary across all host countries.
They suggest mapping which segments of mineral value chains should reside within specific corridor locations, followed by targeted fiscal regimes, energy investments, and skills development initiatives. The African Union’s Green Minerals Strategy demonstrates a shift towards integrated regional industrialization, corridor-based infrastructure planning, and collaborative value chains. Regional economic communities like SADC, COMESA, and ECCAS serve as platforms to support this model.
Implementing functioning corridors demands a disciplined approach from governments, treating each corridor as a unified planning entity for power, water, connectivity, and skills across jurisdictions. Fiscal terms must be aligned to prevent counterproductive competition while maintaining tailored incentives. A joint focus on environmental and social governance ensures consistent standards throughout the corridor. These foundational elements underpin regional value-chain design and encourage private sector participation. Mining companies and related industries are more likely to invest long-term if predictable frameworks for transport, energy pricing, fiscal policies, and environmental standards exist throughout the corridor. Similarly, manufacturers and financiers seek scale, reliability, and risk-sharing to justify substantial commitments.
AFRICA NEEDS ACTION
Frans Baleni, Chairperson of the Investing in African Mining Indaba Advisory Board, has reiterated the urgency of taking action, especially in anticipation of the upcoming Indaba event, Africa’s leading mining platform. The Indaba aims to accelerate efforts toward a robust new era of partnership.
At a recent Indaba media conference, Dr. Marit Kitaw, Economic Affairs Officer at the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, emphasized the need for unified advocacy and an “African agency.” She noted that critical minerals have assumed the role of currency, citing cobalt in DRC, manganese and gold in South Africa, graphite in Mozambique, and platinum, among others. Achieving economies of scale and bargaining power requires enhanced regional integration, which will be showcased at the Indaba through examples of effective collaboration.
FUTURE-FACING MINERALS
According to Webber and Seaka, Africa possesses nearly one-third of the world’s reserves of minerals essential for the future, including those driving the global energy transition—copper, cobalt, manganese, graphite, nickel, lithium, and PGMs—alongside materials vital to advanced manufacturing and digital technologies. These resources are dispersed across Central, Southern, and East Africa, with notable concentrations of bauxite in Guinea and emerging rare earth deposits in Namibia and elsewhere. Strengthening regional value chains in fragmented mineral belts remains a compelling imperative for Africa’s sustainable industrialization.
