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Project Summary:

Surging global demand for minerals used in renewable energy technologies represents unprecedented opportunities and challenges for Southern Africa, home to substantial concentrations of these materials. Experts anticipate that rising international consumption will sustain demand and prices until mid-century due to the impact of the “Green Transition”, the strategic shift led by industrialized countries towards the replacement of carbon-based fuels and energy generation with renewable energy sources and technologies. African exports of these “mineral energy materials” (MEMs) have increased seven-fold in the past two decades, with a forecast rise in demand of nearly 600% by 2050 for key exports like cobalt. Yet as Southern Africa emerges as a priority destination for global MEM miners and traders, there are growing concerns about the capacity of African governments to regulate the foreign-dominated industry and ensure their countries share equitably in the benefits of its unparalleled growth. Recent African iterations of “extractivism” – national development strategies that rely heavily on revenues derived from mineral exports – produced disappointing results in the 2010s, delivering weak economic growth, few opportunities for local miners, businesses and workers, and poor fiscal support for the strengthening of state social services. Contributing factors in these negative and politically destabilizing outcomes, including weak state capacity, the disproportionately influential role of mining companies in policy implementation, and the marginalisation of key domestic mining and social interests from policy-making processes, remain in place. They now threaten the potential of future MEM-driven growth in the region.

Project Description:

Building on the insights of a multidisciplinary team of partners in place since 2018 (SSHRC Partnership Development Grant 2020, SSHRC Connection Grant 2018), this partnership proposes to study the dynamics of MEMs in four key Southern Africa producers; the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Our team of 9 partners and 22 participants in 5 countries includes academics, civil society researchers and activists, and public policy researchers. We will address research gaps identified by the Partnership Development Grant in four policy areas critical for MEMs: (1) the formalization and incorporation of Artisanal and Small-scale Mining into MEM supply chains; (2) the reframing of mining taxation to leverage revenues and fund expanded social services; (3) the fostering of links between domestic industry and MEMs; and (4) the engagement of transnational frameworks and regulations with the aim of expanding national policy space. Drawing on our partners’ extensive links with domestic mining interests and actors, this will be the first research initiative in Southern Africa focused on bringing local stakeholders’ experiences and expectations of MEMs into the heart of regional policy debates. Building on our partners’ strong records in supporting policy-making processes, community outreach and research training for civil society organizations, we will engage a diverse range of stakeholders with the aim of transforming policy debates into action.

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Funded

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Project Director

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