Decision-makers and industrialists gathered in Abidjan are advocating for Africa to stop exporting its critical minerals in their raw state and to develop local value chains.
The stakes are well known, but the pressure is mounting. Africa is rich in critical minerals—cobalt, lithium, manganese—essential to global energy transition industries, yet it receives only a marginal share of the final value. It is precisely this imbalance that a summit held in Abidjan placed at the heart of discussions.
Meeting in Ivory Coast's economic capital, policymakers and industry leaders discussed ways to develop local processing sectors. The goal: to capture a larger share of the wealth generated by these resources, rather than leaving the added value to be created elsewhere, in Asia or Europe.
The issue of processing on the African continent is not new, but it takes on particular urgency in the context of growing global demand for these materials. Several producing countries are seeking to impose stricter conditions on the export of raw minerals, a strategy that requires substantial investments in industrial and energy infrastructure.
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