Africa's critical minerals
Africa mines 77% of the world's cobalt and 66% of its manganese, yet it sells only 10.6% of the world's raw and semi-processed minerals, and 96% of its critical-mineral exports leave raw or only part-processed.
- 10.6%
- of world exports of raw and semi-processed minerals, USD 266 bn in 2023 (UNCTAD's broad basket, not only the six)
- 96%
- of Africa's critical-mineral exports leave raw (24%) or semi-processed (72%)
- 10.4%
- of the world's exploration spending in 2024, down from 16% in 2004, though Africa hosts 20% of new discoveries
- about 40%
- of the mineral revenue they could raise is what many African states collect, the paper estimates
That gap, between what lies in African ground and what Africa earns from it, is the subject of the OECD's 2026 regional overview of critical minerals: a large share of the world's supply, a small place in the market, and almost none of the refining, where most of the value is added.
The paper covers six minerals: cobalt, copper, graphite, lithium, manganese and nickel. This page sets out what it finds, maps what it lists (the export bans, the partners' deals) and the main mines of the six minerals, shows seven of them from space in 2017 and 2026, and checks the paper's production and reserve figures against the USGS and BGS statistics it cites. 18 of the 20 shares it prints match their source; its two copper shares are swapped, and one other figure and two figure notes don't hold up.
The paper: OECD Global Relations Policy Papers, 2026/7, 56 pages, CC BY 4.0 · checked against the USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries 2025 and the BGS · mines from the companies' reports, satellite pairs from Sentinel-2 · registers compiled 21 Oct 2026 and 31 Oct 2026
How much of the world's supply
Africa's share of the world's mine output in 2024 and of its known reserves, split by country, from the USGS edition the paper uses; nickel's output is from the British Geological Survey, which names every producer. The pale track is the rest of the world. Hover a bar for each country's share.
Table view
| Mineral | Mined | By country | Source | Reserves | By country |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cobalt | 76.8% | DR Congo 75.9%, Madagascar 0.9% | USGS 2024 | 55.5% | DR Congo 54.5%, Madagascar 0.9% |
| Copper | 17.3% | DR Congo 14.3%, Zambia 3.0% | USGS 2024 | 10.3% | DR Congo 8.2%, Zambia 2.1% |
| Graphite | 11.8% | Madagascar 5.6%, Mozambique 4.7%, Tanzania 1.6% | USGS 2024 | 24.1% | Madagascar 9.3%, Mozambique 8.6%, Tanzania 6.2% |
| Lithium | 10.3% | Zimbabwe 9.2%, Namibia 1.1% | USGS 2024 | 1.6% | Zimbabwe 1.6%, Namibia 0.0% |
| Manganese | 65.9% | South Africa 37.0%, Gabon 23.0%, Ghana 4.1%, Côte d'Ivoire 1.8% | USGS 2024 | 37.3% | South Africa 32.9%, Gabon 3.6%, Ghana 0.8% |
| Nickel | 3.2% | South Africa 0.8%, Madagascar 0.7%, Côte d'Ivoire 0.7%, Zambia 0.6%, Zimbabwe 0.4%, Morocco 0.0% | BGS 2024 | n/a | not in the USGS table |
The paper reads the gap between the two bars as a sign of how little of Africa has been explored. Gabon mines 23% of the world's manganese from 3.6% of its reserves: more likely its reserves are under-counted than its ore unusually cheap to dig p. 14. Graphite runs the other way, with a quarter of the world's reserves and a tenth of its output. Only cobalt and manganese make Africa a large producer in aggregate.
Cobalt
batteries for electric vehicles and grid storage, superalloys, power cables and motors
Refining happens elsewhere: the paper puts 60% of the cobalt refining in China, and no African country refines a significant share, nor is expected to by 2040 (p. 11–12).
Copper
wiring, power grids and transmission, renewable plants
The DRC has overtaken Chile as the world's second refiner of copper cathode, with 8% of supply against China's 45% in 2024 (IEA, p. 12).
Graphite
battery anodes, fuel cells, lubricants
Synthetic graphite and swings in battery demand have pushed prices down (p. 13).
Lithium
rechargeable batteries, above all for electric vehicles and grid storage
The paper's own note 6 flags that the World Bank puts Africa at 15.9% of world lithium reserves; the USGS may not count the DRC's announced resources (p. 54).
Manganese
steel (about 90% of supply), and high-purity manganese for batteries
Gabon mines far more than its reserves suggest, which the paper reads as a sign that Africa's reserves are under-explored rather than that its deposits are cheap (p. 14).
Nickel
stainless steel, superalloys and battery cathodes (13% of nickel use in 2023)
No African country is among the USGS's leading producers, so the paper takes nickel output from the British Geological Survey and reserves from the World Bank and the Nickel Institute (p. 14, note 8).