Skillings Mining Review published on 3 March 2026 an article titled "The Indaba 2026 Legacy: Inside the New African Critical Minerals Framework" by Charles Pitts.
The most recent Cape Town conference on mining (Indaba 2026) demonstrated that three major African sources of critical minerals (DRC, Zambia, and South Africa) acted in a coordinated way to ensure that its raw mineral wealth is not just exported but more of it is refined in Africa for value added benefits. For example, the DRC produces about 70 percent of the world's cobalt but now refines less than 10 percent of it. The DRC intends to change that ratio.
The West's Lobito Corridor project for Angola, Zambia, and the DRC fits this new African narrative reasonably well, China's focus on importing raw material not so much.
