A phone battery, a wind turbine, an electric car: each contains cobalt, copper, lithium or graphite, and a large share of those metals comes from African ground. The Democratic Republic of the Congo alone supplies about seventy per cent of the world's cobalt, according to the United States Geological Survey. President Macky Sall places the fair use of these resources among the commitments of his candidacy for the office of UN Secretary-General.
Ore that leaves raw. Processing, which creates jobs and added value, mostly happens elsewhere. The producing country collects a royalty; the buyer takes the refined metal and the component.
The seven principles of 2024. In September 2024 the panel convened by the Secretary-General on critical energy transition minerals published seven principles. They ask, among other things, that producing countries receive a fair share of the value and that the rights of communities near mines be respected.
An African vision already written. The African Union adopted the Africa Mining Vision in 2009, which calls for resources to be processed on the continent and tied to local industry. The text mostly needs financing and roads.
Public contracts. Local processing requires readable, published contracts that state the share going to the state and to communities. Transparency reassures serious investors too.
A state that mines and negotiates. Senegal mines phosphates, zircon and gold. Twelve years at its head showed President Macky Sall the gap between a signed permit and an income received. The vision statement filed with the United Nations asks for clear sharing rules, known to all before the first excavator arrives.
Africa at its heart, the world in its sights.
The principles of the Secretary-General's panel on critical energy transition minerals (2024), the Africa Mining Vision (2009) and United States Geological Survey production figures are public. Read all public positions at www.mackysall.net