Surging global demand for critical minerals, essential for technologies ranging from smartphones to fighter jets, presents a significant opportunity for resource-rich nations to harness wealth and improve living standards, but it has also increasingly fueled conflict and poverty, according to World Trade Organization Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala.
Speaking before the U.N. Security Council, Okonjo-Iweala warned that these minerals are now viewed as strategic assets, driving interstate competition. She expressed concern that major economies are racing to secure supplies, increasing the risk of conflicts and potentially trapping developing economies in low-value extraction while the highest profits and technologies remain abroad.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres echoed these concerns, highlighting how competition for minerals like lithium, cobalt, nickel, and rare earths has benefited armed groups through illegal mining and smuggling in eastern Congo, with civilians bearing the brunt of the ongoing conflict. He also pointed to Sudan, where the fight between government and paramilitary forces is fueled by the exploitation of natural resources such as gold and gum arabic, leading to atrocities and mass displacement.
Okonjo-Iweala proposed a three-pronged approach to ensure mineral wealth benefits developing nations: demanding more local processing and value addition, strengthening the international rule of law, and encouraging resource-rich countries to collaborate and leverage their position to reverse the export of raw materials and promote investment. She emphasized that achieving global energy security and the green transition is impossible without these minerals, noting that Africa alone possesses about 30% of the world's critical minerals, with much of its reserves yet to be explored.