CAPE TOWN, South Africa, February 9, 2026/APO Group: Africa hosts an estimated USD29.5 trillion in mine-site mineral value, accounting for 20 percent of global mineral wealth, while it captures only a fraction of the economic value embedded in this endowment. This is according to a study released by Africa Finance Corporation (AFC).
Out of this total, USD8.6 trillion remains undeveloped, reflecting an under-explored continent where fragmented geological data, uneven coverage, and limited transparency continue to elevate risk perception and constrain investment. The report argues that improving geological data availability and quality is a necessary first step to de-risk projects and unlock exploration capital.
The report, the Compendium of Africa’s Strategic Minerals, reframes the sector through an African development lens, placing industrialisation, infrastructure, and long-term regional demand at the centre of mineral strategy.
“Today, AFC is proud to launch the Compendium of Africa’s Strategic Minerals, an initiative to reframe the sector through an African lens and convert endowment into execution pathways for our collective prosperity,” commented the President & CEO of AFC, Samaila Zubairu.
“The Compendium maps full value chains and links reserves and production to processing capacity, power and transport infrastructure, and regional industrial corridors—improving data transparency to de-risk exploration, lower the cost of capital, and guide smarter investment into mining and the enabling infrastructure needed for beneficiation and integrated regional value chains.”
Mineral development anchored on African demand
The Compendium has revealed that mineral production, enabling infrastructure, and demand rarely reach equilibrium at scale, and calls for stronger regional planning anchored in Africa’s long-term demand fundamentals, where the steel value chain illustrates this mismatch.
Africa hosts world-class endowments of ferro-alloys such as manganese, chromium, and nickel, and the iron ore supply is entering a new growth cycle. Yet, such supply chains remain commercially tethered to Asian steel cycles rather than Africa’s own development trajectory.
This exposure is economically costly and currently, the slowdown in Asian steel demand—linked to China’s property downturn and weaker construction—has transmitted shocks into African mineral markets. While in South Africa, primary steelmaking capacity has shut down amid weak domestic demand, high costs, and fragmented offtake.
These outcomes are occurring even as Africa continues to expand transport networks, power systems, housing, and industrial capacity that require these materials. The constraint is not a lack of demand, but a dearth of demand anchoring: the failure to align mineral production, processing capacity, and infrastructure investment around Africa’s long-term material needs.
Infrastructure links minerals, processing and demand
The Compendium places infrastructure at the centre of mineral strategy—not as a passive enabler, but as the system that links raw materials, processing capacity, and demand. Power cost and reliability, transport connectivity, and access to industrial land ultimately determine whether beneficiation is viable.
To this end, the report maps mineral deposits and producing assets alongside railways, ports, power generation hubs, and transmission networks to identify where regional value chains can realistically be developed.
Infrastructure is also central to Africa’s competitiveness in a world of green industrialisation. Clean power, efficient logistics, and integrated corridors such as Lobito can reduce carbon intensity and improve access to markets where low-carbon and traceable supply chains are increasingly required.
Minerals in a fragmenting global economy
The Compendium places Africa’s mineral strategy in a rapidly changing geo-economic landscape shaped by trade tensions, export controls, industrial policy, and efforts to reduce concentration risk. These shifts are elevating the strategic relevance of Africa’s mineral endowment—but only where the continent can offer reliable, value-adding alternatives.
Rather than positioning Africa as a marginal supplier of raw materials, the report argues for selective integration into strategically exposed segments of global supply chains, where diversification would materially enhance resilience—particularly for minerals with highly concentrated processing markets.
