During the first day of the London Indaba, on June 25, held under the theme ‘Investing in Resources and Mining in Africa’, panel discussions unpacked what the continent’s mining jurisdictions could do to make the industry more attractive, the challenges of reduced available finance and how international stakeholders are partnering with African operators in pursuit of critical minerals and metals supply.

Moshe Capital founder and CEO Mametja Moshe highlighted that Africa presented a compelling case for investment, owing to its growing youth population, high-grade resources that could be exploited using new technology to lower costs.

She acknowledged that there were challenges, with infrastructure being the biggest. However, Moshe said these could present an opportunity for mining companies to partner with government and/or infrastructure funds.

Public-private partnerships had also been proven to work.

Another challenge was that of security, which Moshe said could be addressed through partnerships with communities, who would provide social security to companies operating in these jurisdictions.

ARCH Emerging Partners MD Amanda van Dyke pointed out, however, that Africa needed to do more if it wanted to bolster its participation in the critical minerals industry.

She emphasised that governments on the continent needed to incentivise the development of green supply chains, as was being done in other countries, to allow them to compete.

Van Dyke outlined a checklist for countries to pursue to attract investment in the mining industry and in the critical minerals subset, namely, allowing bilateral financing; having the requisite infrastructure; having access to energy, preferably low cost and low carbon; having access to capital to develop projects fully; a skilled workforce; and having a good mining code that could compete against global peers.