Concept Note
1. Background and Context
Africa is at a pivotal moment as global demand for critical minerals such as cobalt, lithium, coltan, manganese, and rare earths accelerates due to the transition to green energy, digital technologies, and advanced manufacturing. The continent holds approximately 30% of the world’s known critical mineral reserves and is central to global supply chains that will shape the future economy.
However, the extraction of these resources continues to reproduce longstanding governance and development challenges. Across the continent, mineral exploitation has often resulted in community dispossession, environmental degradation, inequality, and weak accountability. In several contexts, including the Democratic Republic of Congo, Guinea, Mozambique, and Sudan, mineral wealth has been linked to conflict dynamics, elite capture, and illicit economies. Artisanal and small- scale miners many of them youth and women remain marginalized despite their critical role in the sector.
The relationship between critical minerals and peace is not predetermined. Governance is the key mediating factor. Where institutions are transparent, inclusive, and accountable, mineral resources can contribute to development and social cohesion. Where governance is weak, they can exacerbate conflict, inequality, and instability.
At the same time, shifting geopolitical competition for mineral access and supply chain control is placing new pressures on African countries. Without coordinated approaches, these dynamics risk reinforcing dependency and unequal partnerships. Yet, across Africa, alternative visions are emerging. Youth-led movements, women’s networks, community peace initiatives, and innovative models of local ownership and value addition are challenging extractive systems and calling for more just, inclusive, and sustainable approaches.
This conference seeks to bring together these diverse actors to reframe mineral governance as a political, social, and peacebuilding issue, and to advance a new, people-centered agenda grounded in democratic accountability, reparative justice, and transformative peace.
2. Rationale
This conference responds to four interrelated priorities:
Democratic Governance: Critical mineral governance is central to Africa’s democratic and developmental future. Decisions on contracts, revenues, and community participation will shape public trust, legitimacy, and long-term prosperity. Current patterns of elite and corporate capture highlight the need to democratize decision-making and ensure community ownership.
Peace and Security: Mineral-rich regions are often sites of conflict driven by exclusion, land dispossession, and weak governance. Sustainable peace requires prioritizing community agency, local peace infrastructures, and accountable institutions within mineral governance systems.
Economic Transformation: Africa has a narrow window to move up the mineral value chain. Rather than remaining exporters of raw materials, countries can leverage this moment to promote value addition, regional industrialization, and equitable economic participation. This requires stronger institutions, reduced revenue leakages, and inclusive policies.
Geopolitical Shifts: Growing global competition for African minerals risks fragmenting regional coordination and reinforcing unequal agreements. Strengthening continental cooperation and South-South alliances will be critical to enhancing Africa’s bargaining power.
Across all these priorities, there is a clear need to center voices often excluded from policy spaces particularly communities, artisanal miners, youth, women, and local peace actors.
3. Goal and Objectives
Overall Goal:
To co-create a continental agenda for democratic, peaceful, and community- centered governance of critical minerals that advances justice, equity, and sustainable development.
Objectives:
- Assess the governance, conflict, and development implications of critical mineral extraction from community and African institutional perspectives.
- Develop shared strategies to strengthen accountability, community ownership, and regional cooperation.
- Generate actionable recommendations that promote peace, justice, and inclusive economic governance.
- Build alliances to elevate African perspectives in continental and global policy processes.
4. Conference Themes
The conference will focus on five interrelated themes:
1. Democratic Governance and Accountability: Examining transparency, corporate influence, civic participation, and community-led accountability.
2. Conflict, Peace, and Reparative Justice: Exploring conflict dynamics, militarization, and community-centered peacebuilding approaches.
3. Inclusive and Equitable Economic Futures: Promoting value addition, addressing illicit financial flows, and supporting inclusive economic participation.
4. Human Rights and Community Agency and Ownership: Centering Indigenous knowledge, human rights, environmental justice, and local decision-making.
5. Geopolitics and Regional Cooperation: Strengthening Africa’s global bargaining power and advancing coordinated continental strategies.
5. Expected Outcomes
The conference will deliver:
- A shared, people-centered framework for critical mineral governance grounded in democracy, peace, and justice.
- A coordinated roadmap for collaboration across governance, peace, and economic actors.
- A high-level policy communiqué outlining priorities for regional and global engagement.
- Concrete recommendations for African institutions, governments, and civil society.
- Strengthened alliances among civic movements, community actors, and policymakers.
- Follow-up actions to support ongoing advocacy, learning, and partnership- building.
6. Participants
Participants will include representatives from governments, African regional institutions, civil society organizations, youth and women’s movements, artisanal mining communities, peacebuilding actors, the private sector, academia, and international partners.
7. Indicative Agenda (Summary)
Day 1: Setting the Scene
High-level opening, keynote discussions, and framing of governance, conflict, and economic issues/nexus.
Day 2: Deep Dive Dialogues
Thematic sessions on governance, peace, economic transformation, and community agency.
Day 3: Synthesis and Way Forward
Presentation of recommendations, validation of outcomes, and adoption of a joint communiqué.
8. Conclusion
Africa’s critical mineral endowment presents both an unprecedented opportunity and a profound governance challenge. While global demand for these resources continues to rise, their extraction has too often reproduced patterns of exclusion, inequality, environmental harm, and conflict. At the same time, emerging movements across the continent demonstrate that a different trajectory is possible one rooted in democratic accountability, community ownership, reparative justice, and sustainable peace.
This conference offers a timely platform to reframe critical mineral governance not merely as a technical or economic matter, but as a central issue of political choice, social justice, and peacebuilding. By bringing together diverse actors including governments, regional bodies, civil society, mining communities, youth, women, and peacebuilders the convening seeks to foster a shared understanding of the challenges and co-develop practical, inclusive, and forward-looking solutions.
Ultimately, the success of Africa’s engagement with the global critical minerals economy will depend on the extent to which governance systems are made more transparent, participatory, and accountable, and the degree to which communities most affected by extraction are placed at the center of decision-making. This conference therefore marks an important step toward building a more just, peaceful, and equitable mineral future for the continent.