This op-ed was written by Siddharth Akali, Director at the Coalition for Human Rights in Development, and published by African Arguments. You can read the full op-ed here.
Since 2023, 14 African countries have introduced export restrictions on unprocessed critical minerals, requiring “local beneficiation” – or in-country processing and manufacturing – prior to export, and demanding technology and financing.
Wealthier countries are also supporting the idea of local beneficiation and stepping up investments in resource-rich countries, promising this will help to lift them out of poverty. Behind these promises, however, they are perpetuating a top-down, economic model that only serves their own interests, and are reducing long-standing equity-based claims for climate justice and reparations from the Global South to a business opportunity.
Promoted by Western governments and executed through their development banks and corporations, this model pushes African countries further into debt, allows wealth to flow out through tax avoidance, and imposes policy changes that undermine environmental and human rights, while diverting scarce public resources away from hospitals, schools and social protection.
Imider women at the top of Mount Albban, Morocco. Credit: Lorena Cotza