Pecohub A report has urged Nigeria and the rest of Africa to rewire $29.5 trillion mineral endowment to develop their industry and infrastructure.
The report, released by Africa Finance Corporation (AFC), placed industrialisation, infrastructure and long-term regional demand at the centre of Africa’s mineral strategy.
Noting that Africa hosts an estimated $29.5 trillion in mine-site mineral value, representing about 20 per cent of global mineral wealth, the report regretted that the continent captures only a fraction of the economic value in this endowment.
Of this total, it noted that $8.6 trillion remained undeveloped, reflecting an under-explored continent where fragmented geological data, uneven coverage and limited transparency continue to elevate risk perception and constrain investment.
The report argued that improving geological data availability and quality is a necessary first step to de-risk projects and unlock exploration capital.
The study also stressed that mine-site value significantly understates Africa’s true potential by failing to capture the far larger value created when minerals are processed into steel, aluminium, fertilisers, batteries and alloys.
Measured at the point of industrial use, Africa’s mineral endowment expands by an order of magnitude, revealing substantial latent value, it noted.
AFC President, Samaila Zubairu, said the initiative was launched to reframe the sector through an African lens and convert endowment into execution pathways for the continent’s collective prosperity.
He added that the report mapped full value chains and linked reserves and production to processing capacity, power and transport infrastructure and regional industrial corridors.
The report added that mineral production, enabling infrastructure and demand rarely co-locate or align at scale and called for stronger regional planning anchored in Africa’s long-term demand fundamentals.
“Africa hosts world-class endowments of ferro-alloys such as manganese, chromium and nickel and iron ore supply is entering a new growth cycle. Yet these supply chains remain commercially tethered to Asian steel cycles rather than our own development trajectory,” it noted.
