Tinubu leads fresh push for Africa mineral wealth

President Bola Tinubu is set to spearhead a continent-wide initiative aimed at ensuring Africa retains control over its mineral wealth, as he convenes a high-level summit on critical minerals in New York next month. The meeting, organized by the Africa Minerals Strategy Group (AMSG), will take place on September 21, 2026, during the 81st session of the United Nations General Assembly.

Tinubu, who chairs the AMSG General Assembly, will lead the Third High-Level Roundtable on Critical Minerals Development in Africa, bringing together African leaders, government representatives, global investors, development finance institutions, multilateral organizations, and executives from mining, technology, and logistics companies.

The summit, themed "From Resources to Wealth: Continental Cooperation for Mineral Value Addition," aims to address the global scramble for minerals required for electric vehicles, renewable energy, advanced manufacturing, artificial intelligence, digital infrastructure, and defense technologies. Africa possesses substantial deposits of minerals such as lithium, copper, cobalt, graphite, manganese, and rare earth elements, yet historically, the continent has exported these resources in raw or minimally processed forms, allowing other regions to reap the benefits of refining, manufacturing, and finished products.

The AMSG hopes to change this trend by encouraging African countries to transition from the traditional extract-and-export model to building integrated mineral value chains, attracting transformative capital, strengthening continental cooperation, and securing a greater share of the economic value generated from the continent's mineral resources.

The New York meeting will mark the next phase of the Mutual Assured Development framework, initiated at the African Natural Resources and Energy Investment Summit in Abuja earlier in 2026. African leaders and policymakers are expected to unveil a proposed Continental Integration and Economic Assurance Declaration, which will outline policy coordination, investment mobilization, local value addition, supply-chain security, and efforts to strengthen Africa's negotiating position in the global minerals economy.

A key component of the initiative is the proposed CIEAD Finance Window, designed to mobilize capital for mineral processing, infrastructure, technology, and other essential segments for building competitive value chains within Africa.