OECD Minerals Report Highlights Africa’s Processing and Supply-Chain Gap

Monday 26th October 2026

By inAfrika Newsroom

Africa’s critical-minerals opportunity depends on building competitive processing industries as well as expanding extraction, according to a new OECD policy paper. The report places the continent’s share of global critical-mineral exports at 10.6%, while highlighting how little of that trade consists of more advanced products.

Published on 19 October, Critical Minerals in Africa: A Regional Overview estimates that raw materials account for 24% of Africa’s critical-mineral exports and semi-processed products for 72%. These shares concern the report’s critical-minerals export grouping, rather than all African exports.

Together, the two categories represent 96% of the reported mix. That arithmetic illustrates the distance between producing mineral resources and capturing the value associated with more advanced materials, without establishing that every processing investment would be commercially viable.

The OECD identifies existing processing facilities in several African countries but describes them as insufficiently connected into wider industrial systems. Its recommendations emphasise geological information, institutions, responsible business conduct and regional cooperation alongside investment.

A practical way to read the findings is to ask what a proposed processing plant needs around it. Reliable electricity, transport, suitable technical skills and customers are operating requirements; an ore deposit alone cannot establish the economics of a particular refinery or manufacturing line.

Tanzania and its neighbours can apply that question to project announcements without assuming identical opportunities across different minerals. Processing technologies, product specifications and markets vary, so a credible proposal needs a clear explanation of what will be produced, who will buy it and how its costs will be covered.

The findings add an economic lens to the separate AfCFTA–UNIDO industrial cooperation agenda. Regional arrangements may help connect suppliers and markets, but their effectiveness should be measured through projects and operating businesses.

The strongest future indicators would include commissioned processing capacity, actual output, skilled employment and competitive sales. Announced investment values and export restrictions on their own provide a less complete account of industrial progress.