A string of lights hangs from the ceiling, glowing in myriad bright colors, as if a child’s birthday party were underway. Raymond is sitting on a plastic chair under the lights, wearing a bright red cowboy hat and a yellow T-shirt with a large bottle of beer set on the table in front of him. Raymond laughs a lot and then pulls out his phone and scrolls through the photos.

The first pictures show a number of children, but they aren’t playing or carrying their book bags – they’re holding guns. And instead of wearing school uniforms, they’re in camouflage. Raymond is also in the photos with the rebels, looking far more aggressive. He’s not wearing a cowboy hat and is instead holding a gun and posing next to the children. He scrolls further. At some point, the photos stop, and dozens of porn videos follow. Embarrassed, he turns off his mobile.

We are visiting the Mai-Mai Yakutumba in South Kivu in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The notorious rebel group dominates this region, massacring entire villages, raping women and extorting the populace – all to expand their power. And they control the gold business.

Raymond refers to himself as the secretary general of the Mai-Mai rebels, but it is hard to tell if the title really exists or if it is just something he has made up. He’s an emissary of sorts, because the rebel chief himself, William Yakutumba, is scheduled to arrive that night. For now, though, the DER SPIEGEL team must content itself with hanging out under the string of lights and listening as the secretary general shares his war stories.

At some point, the beer runs out and we are assigned rooms in the rebel’s flophouse. They can only be locked from the outside. The next morning, Yakutumba still hasn’t arrived, but there are serious-looking older men who again query us about what we want to ask the boss. Raymond with the cowboy hat is rebuked by them in Kiswahili. They tell him he doesn’t look tough enough and that the foreign journalists aren’t going to get the correct impression. Ultimately, though, the boss doesn’t show up at all – and no real reason is given for his absence. Raymond seems a bit disappointed.

Ultimately, though, the group does provide DER SPIEGEL, and the German international broadcaster Deutsche Welle, with access to the notorious gold mines around Misisi. It is the first time international journalists have been allowed inside. And there’s a reason for that: Gold is the main source of income for the Mai-Mai Yakutumba rebels and they use it to finance their armed conflict. The precious metal eventually ends up in rings and necklaces in Europe and the United States, but beneath that luster is the blood of the rebels’ victims.

Victims like Esther Nanduhura’s husband. It was early one morning in October 2021, the sun hadn’t even fully risen, when the fighters arrived in Bibokoboko, the village where they lived. They charged in from three sides with machine guns, machetes and torches. “I was sure at that moment that I was going to die,” Nanduhura says.

She’s a member of the Banyamulenge ethnic group, a minority that migrated from Rwanda and other regions generations ago. The Mai-Mai Yakutumba view them as their main enemy, as alien Tutsies who must be exterminated. They have already driven the Banyamulenge out of large parts of South Kivu and Bibokoboko is one of their last strongholds, guarded by United Nations peacekeepers and the Congolese military.

Nanduhura managed to find a hiding place, but her 80-year-old father-in-law wasn’t fast enough. The rebels shot him to death without hesitating. In the end, the Mai-Mai also found the 35-year-old and her family, making them go on a forced march that lasted for several days. After two days, they dragged her husband away and he never came back. Nanduhura later learned he had been hacked to death with a machete. “They threatened to kill us too, we didn’t get anything to eat and the children kept fainting,” she recalls. The prisoners weren’t released until a week later, and only a few returned to their village.

Nanduhura is safe now and lives in a large city far away from the horrors. “People in Europe buy gold from the rebels, thus financing the weapons they use to kill us. This has to end,” she demands.

In other words, the men under the string of lights, drinking beer in their red cowboy hats and showing off their photos and porn, are essentially murderers and rapists.

The Mines of the Rebels

Two porters carry mineral sand on their bicycle down into the valley. The path down is very dangerous. 

The road to the Mitondo gold mine is challenging, to say the least. The road gets narrower and narrower behind the town of Misisi. At some point, the old Land Cruiser gets stuck in a deep water hole, and from that point on, it is only possible to continue by motorcycle. Another motorcycle approaches with two sticks attached in an upright position behind the driver. Something is tied tightly between the sticks – it looks like a big sack or a mummy wrapped in cloth bandages. The motorcycle is carrying a body, which has been positioned upright. A miner has died, as so often happens. His body is now driven for hours over bumpy roads, back to his family, who will bury him.

After a few kilometers in the direction of Mitondo, it is no longer possible to go further by motorcycle and the journey continues by foot on a steep path. The climb is relentless, with the hot sun beating down, even though it is already late afternoon.

The mineral sand is carried down into the valley from the mines in sacks. From there, it is transported further using muscle power and bicycles. 

Suddenly a rattling can be heard, it gets louder, and someone gasps. “Look out” someone yells from above. Then a rickety contraption emerges, a bicycle the men cobbled together themselves, but without working brakes. A young man holds the handlebars, his feet in rubber boots dragging on the ground, panic can be seen in his eyes, even though he somehow manages this grueling descent every day. He has loaded large sacks with the ore and now has to find a way to transport them down into the valley, using his rubber boots as brakes.

Eventually the path flattens out a bit, winds around a rock to the left, and a dystopia suddenly comes into sight. Dozens of makeshift huts covered with blue tarpaulins line the road. People can be seen lying, squatting or sitting in them. Many still have their headlamps on their heads, their naked torsos shimmer brightly, they are completely covered in mud. Some look up briefly as they notice the visitors, but most continue to doze lethargically, their eyes half open. They don’t even seem to have the strength to nod in greeting anymore.

The miners live in these makeshift dwellings for weeks and months at a time and work in the mines every day. They eat in makeshift restaurants in a secluded parallel world. This young man is trying to earn some extra money by selling grooming products and alcohol. 

Behind the tents, two steep slopes rise to the left and right with a small stream flowing between them. Workers with shovels can be seen everywhere digging artificial pools or heaving brownish mud into wooden troughs and sieves. Then, suddenly, there’s a loud burst of thunder, a few men quickly jump to the side, and seconds later it becomes clear why: Huge chunks of stone are rolling down the slope toward where the workers had been standing only a moment before. A life-threatening job even outside the actual tunnels.

Only at second glance does it become clear that the steep slopes are littered with tunnels, barely more than a meter high, supported by thin wooden beams. The wet rock with the gold ore is pounded out in these tunnels using a hammer and chisel. Many don’t survive the search for the precious metal.

The United Nations issues an annual report on the Democratic Republic of Congo with a special focus on armed groups and their access to raw materials. The mines around Misisi make a regular appearance in that report. The experts write: “The Mai-Mai Yakutumba control the Makungu and Mitondo mines.” In Mitondo, the report states, the rebels forcibly drove out the Congolese army in December 2021 and established their own administration.

But armed men are nowhere to be seen. A group leads us through the mine, with some introducing themselves as representatives of the local gold cooperative, one man as a security officer, others cannot be identified. No one wears a uniform. Later, the miners say that several rebels dressed in civilian clothing had been part of the entourage. The boundaries are often blurred, with the rebels working hand in hand with government security forces and sharing the profits from gold mining.

James Mulemi*, 22, takes a break from washing the slurry in a yellow plastic container to talk about working in the mine. A man standing near him introduces himself as an intelligence officer, whatever that might mean. But James still speaks openly about the rebels, as if it were the most normal thing in the world.

“They’re up there in the mountains,” the wiry teenager tells us, pointing to the slope next to him. He’s referring to the Mai-Mai with the guns who control everything here. He says that although they may be out of sight, they can still see everything that takes place down below – an invisible power that determines the lives of miners. In confidential conversations, other workers confirm James’ descriptions.

James then discusses how the rebels exert control. For every gram of gold he extracts from the mountain, he has to pay a fee: first to the Mai-Mai, then to the army and, next, to the cooperative, to the Mining Ministry and the local village chiefs. He says they’re all aware of what the other is doing and that they leave each other alone – the main thing is that the money keeps flowing. James recounts how the rebels kept meticulous records. “Since they arrived, we have had to pay the money upfront. Those who don’t are beaten brutally. There’s very little left for us to live on.”

After the beatings, usually with a heavy drill rod, the victims are then placed in the “hole,” as they call it. James describes it as being about 3 meters deep and 1 meter wide, adding that they are thrown in if the don’t pay their “taxes,” with as many as 10 people in the hole at a time. Several people claim they were forced to stay there for days without food. The Mai-Mai rebels didn’t respond to questions about the accusations submitted to them by DER SPIEGEL via WhatsApp.

Brutal Working Conditions

Another gold mine, Makungu, is located just a few hundred meters away from Mitondo, though they look almost identical. In one of the narrow tunnels, a light suddenly flickers on, the glow growing brighter and brighter until, finally, a mud-caked figure emerges from the gloom. Michael* rolls a bag of gold ore out of the tunnel, his eyes only slowly getting used to the daylight.

Michael is on guard, he owes the Mai-Mai money. He had recently ran into financial troubles and didn’t have the necessary protection money. “I was in the hole for a week and lost 10 kilos,” he says. You can still see the traces of the torment – he looks haggard despite his muscular body, with sunken cheeks. His tormentors could come back at any moment, and he still doesn’t have the money to pay them.

“I was making twice as much before the rebels came,” Michael says, adding that some of his co-workers have even been killed. Other miners confirm the torture and the violence, but say they haven’t been witness to murders.

Yet working conditions here are bad enough without the Mai-Mai. The tunnels are bored several hundred meters deep into the mountainside, and it is pitch dark inside, with only the light of headlamps piercing the darkness. The miners have to hunch as they walk through the tunnels, even crawling on all fours in some places. And the further they advance into the mountain, the hotter it gets, sometimes over 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit). The air is so thin that workers use a special breathing technique, shallow and steady, to avoid fainting.

The Dangerous Work of Gold Mining

The tunnels frequently collapse when the timbered beams yet again fail to hold them up. In a single incident six years ago, 20 young men were buried alive in the mine. They didn’t stand a chance. Michael’s brother died in the accident, and his body still hasn’t been recovered to this day. It’s only worth digging for gold, not for the dead. “Everyone here knows they could die at any time. But there’s no other way to make money in the area, so we keep going,” the 21-year-old says.

The Path of Gold

Below the gold mines, not far from the village, a deafening grating noise fills the air as a cement mixer-like device crushes the rocks that have been carted out of the mine. The stone powder is then mixed with water to form slurry and sieved several times. After a time, mercury is added, the chemical that separates the gold from the unwanted residue, ultimately yielding porous yellow nuggets that are some of the best in the world.

M’mbongecha Nyange stands next to the noisy machines built by his cooperative. This is where the traders come to buy the valuable nuggets before reselling them. Asked about the rebels and the role they play in the mines, Nyange answers: “In the past, the armed groups used to be here, but not any longer. None of it is true.” Every gram is supposedly strictly accounted for. Yet, according to official statistics, only about 5 kilograms (11 pounds) of gold were produced at Misisi between November and April 2022, an impossible figure given the daily output at the mines.

There is no receipt or even a certificate – the price is negotiated after reviewing the current rate for gold. “My boss is in Bukavu, that’s where the gold goes. He pays me to get him supplies and doesn’t ask questions,” says one shopkeeper.

Everything in the gold-mining town of Misisi revolves around the precious metal. The gold is resold in many shady stores. The owners report that the Mai-Mai collect protection money from them, as well. 

U.S. officials estimate that more than 90 percent of Congo’s gold is traded illegally, and it is impossible for consumers to know whether the product they are buying is clean or not. For the Congolese state, this means that millions in tax revenues are lost every year, while a corrupt elite shamelessly enriches itself.

The traders bring the gold from the mines to Misisi.

The precious metal is taken from city to city along the eastern border of the Democratic Republic of Congo to Bukavu.

From Bukavu, it usually continues further across the border into Rwanda, either smuggled in or officially exported.

From there, the traders ship the gold, sometimes through intermediary sites, often to Dubai.

The city in the United Araba Emirates is considered the global trade center for gold.

Bukavu is a notorious trading hub on the Rwandan border. Gold from all over the south of the country passes through the city, and from here, it is either smuggled to Rwanda or other East African countries, or it is officially exported with fake certificates. Then, the journey of the coveted precious metal continues to places like the United Arab Emirates, one of the world’s largest trading centers for gold, before finally ending up as jewelry in places like Paris, Berlin or Madrid.

The Godfather of the Gold Business

One name has been in the headlines repeatedly in recent years: Alain Goetz. The Belgian is a godfather of sorts in the gold business in Africa. He set up large gold refining plants in Uganda and Rwanda and has allegedly negotiated with an armed group in the 1990s. He has also been convicted of money laundering and fraud. At times this year, he hasn’t even able to use his credit cards, laments Goetz in an interview with DER SPIEGEL.

In March, the U.S. Treasury Department imposed sanctions on Goetz because he was allegedly sourcing gold from regions controlled by armed groups, including the Mai-Mai Yakutumba. Goetz’s network of companies generated hundreds of millions of dollars a year in revenues from trade in Congolese gold. “These illicit acts provide income for armed groups that threaten the peace, security and stability of the Democratic Republic of Congo,” a Treasury Department press release stated in justification of the sanctions.

The United States has slapped Alain Goetz, a Belgian citizen, with sanctions for allegedly buying gold that supports the rebels. 

For his part, Goetz accuses politicians in Washington of meddling in African affairs. But he also tries to portray himself as naïve. “Conflict gold? That term is very easy to use. Then also bananas, water, everything would be ‘conflict’ in that region. The only things I see as products of conflict are weapons, ammunition and bad people,” he says. Besides, he adds, it’s impossible to know exactly where the gold really comes from. Experts, though, believe that tracking its origin should be the duty of traders, since they earn a fortune with the controversial commodity.

Yasin Somji says he wants to build a flagship gold refining plant in Bukavu. 

Goetz’s competitors, meanwhile, are already working on their next steps. On a busy main road in Bukavu, a tall, corrugated iron fence keeps out prying eyes. Behind it, construction workers are laboring away as heavily armed police officers secure the site. Yasin Somji greets his visitors wearing a hardhat and a tight-fitting shirt, walking past huge vaults whose doors are being installed, while brand new machines from Italy are ready for installation. Somji plans to open Congo’s first gold refining plant soon.

When he talks about his plans, he sounds like the opposite of Goetz: young, smart and ethically responsible. He speaks about transparency and the ability to trace the origins of gold. But when asked about the concrete steps, he just repeats, “We will work closely with the government” – not exactly reassuring in a country like Congo.

In any case, he says the mines in Misisi have “great potential.” After all, the gold from the Congo is among the best in the world. The rebels feel the same.

*We have changed the names of the main protagonists in this story to protect their identities. 

Source: Spiegel

In 2017, Peace Direct’s ‘Peace Gold’ project was one of the five winning submissions in the BridgeBuilder Challenge, run by the GHR Foundation in collaboration with OpenIDEO. Gold mining in Eastern DRC degrades the environment and compromises the health of hundreds of thousands of people. Working with local partner Centre Résolution Conflits (CRC), Peace Direct developed the ‘Peace Gold’ project to support ex-combatants affected by war to produce ethical and environmentally friendly gold. After only two years, communities have increased their incomes and strengthened prospects for peace in the region.

Two ‘Peace Gold’ cooperatives bring communities together in the volatile province of Ituri with a common aim: producing ethical and environmentally friendly gold.

This important work has enabled former fighters to reintegrate into their communities. Previously feared, ex-combatants now play an active role in community life, and Peace Direct and CRC are working hard to reduce stigmatisation around former fighters, and to raise awareness on child protection in conflict. Nearly 2,000 cooperative members have received training in conflict resolution, of which one third were former fighters.

Child labour is another problem faced in the region. Through the Peace Gold project, over 950 children have been supported to return to school once more. Children who currently work in the mines will be able to return to school as their parents earn a decent income.

In an area struggling with active and ongoing ethnic tensions, this project is one example of what local peacebuilders do all around the world: help communities affected by violent conflict to heal themselves. The local population will also benefit from a less polluted environment due to fewer chemicals being used, and a more peaceful environment as ex-combatants will be supported to manage conflicts non-violently.

Source: For Peace

On September 28, 2022, the U.S. Department of Labor published the 10th edition of its List of Goods Produced by Child Labor or Forced Labor. The Bureau of International Labor Affairs (“ILAB”) within the Department of Labor maintains a list of goods and their source countries which it has reason to believe are produced by child labor or forced labor in violation of international standards, as required under the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act (“TVPRA”) of 2005. Under the TVPRA, ILAB must submit a list of foreign-made goods that it has reason to believe are produced by forced and/or child labor in violation of international standards to Congress every two years. The 10th edition of the List comprises 158 goods from 77 countries, adding 32 goods, including two new ones: dairy products and açaí berries.

According to the Department of Labor, “ILAB drew on a broad body of evidence to trace, for the first time, goods tainted with forced or child labor as they move through complex global supply chains and which final and intermediate products contain them to produce these studies.” The September 28 report alleges that 27.6 million people are engaged in forced labor, with 57% of those being male and 43% of those being female. Of those 27.6 million, the report alleges that 3.9 million experience state imposed forced labor, 17.4 million experience non-state imposed forced labor, and 6.4 million experience forced sexual exploitation. The report claims that goods produced by forced labor in China are artificial flowers, Christmas decorations, coal, fish, footwear, garments, gloves, hair products, polysilicon, nails, thread/yarn, and tomato products, while products produced by child labor and forced labor are bricks, cotton, electronics, fireworks, textiles, and toys. The report alleges that China is “the country with the greatest number of products made with forced labor, including state-sponsored forced labor.”

The report also includes three in-depth, supply-chain studies on lithium ion batteries, palm oil, and solar panels. The introduction by the Deputy Undersecretary for International Affairs, Thea Mei Lee, states that the ILAB is “drawing attention to critical supply chains in clean energy–highlighting China’s use of forced labor in polysilicon production (a key input in solar panels),” as well as the use of child labor in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (“DRC”) for the mining of cobalt, the majority of which allegedly is then imported into China for the production of lithium batteries. According to the report, China owns or  finances most cobalt mines in the DRC, and China imports almost 90 percent of its cobalt from the DRC.

The report also focuses on the claim regarding force labor concerns in Xinjiang and the steps the U.S. Government is taking “to raise further awareness among companies that do business in or source goods from China.” These steps include joining the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative and the U.S. Departments of States, Treasury ,Commerce, and Homeland Security in issuing an updated Xinjiang Supply Chain Business Advisory in July 2021. Only two days before the publication of this report, Eric Choy, acting executive director of U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s trade remedy law enforcement directorate, told The Dispatch that, from October 1, 2021, through mid-September 2022, “Customs and Border Protection targeted more than 3,600 shipments worth nearly $800 million from around the world for potential ties to forced labor. . . .” Of those 3,600 shipments, Choy stated that “around 1,500 were targeted under the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, adding up to about $420 million.” Both the report and Choy’s comments make clear that alleged forced labor in China will remain a focus of multiple branches of the U.S. Government.

Source: Mayer Brown

The muddy slopes surrounding the eastern Congolese gold-mining town of Kamituga hold vast wealth and crippling deprivation.

In South Kivu province near the borders of Rwanda and Burundi, Kamituga has mineral resources estimated to be worth $24tn (£17tn) in untapped deposits. Yet the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has one of the lowest levels of GDP per capita in the world and people work in dangerous conditions with little hope of scratching out anything more than a meagre existence from tough and dangerous work.

This longstanding disparity has only grown as the coronavirus pandemic pushed up the global gold price to its highest value ever last August ($2,048 an ounce). Meanwhile, local prices offered from buyers in Africa went down, according to the Africa Report, reflecting the imbalance in an international supply chain that exploits poor workers at the source of wealth. Hundreds of thousands of people in South Kivu, including women and children, work in the informal mining sector, mostly in gold.

Artisanal subsistence mining is the informal, small-scale mining done independently by people not officially employed by a mining company, using their own resources, usually by hand. Roughly one-fifth of the global mineral supply is produced by these miners. In 2019, there were an estimated 10 million people working in the sector across sub-Saharan Africa.

Germany’s Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources estimates DRC’s artisanal gold production to be 14 to 20 tonnes a year, with a value of $543m to $812m.

The miners face plenty of risks excavating the gold – 50 mostly young people died in a mine collapse at Kamituga last September – while health care and education for children is virtually nonexistent. Heavy metals such as mercury, which is used to separate gold particles from mud, can seep into the water table and food chain. And with much of the local population working in the mines, it makes for a labour shortage in the fields, so crops become scarce and food prices and malnutrition rise.

While DRC law bans child labour, children can be seen digging through the red mud of Kamituga’s rivers.

“Some children here work in the mines every day, working several hours at a time,” Idi Kyalondwana, who works for a mining co-operative, told France 24 after a visit to Kamituga in February. “Some actually go down into shafts that are several hundred metres deep and tunnels to dig for gold without any safety measures. It’s incredibly dangerous. There are often cave-ins.”

Gold mining also feeds into interlocking conflicts, shrouded in various forms of illicit trading. A recent Impact report documents how registered traders and exporters provide a veneer of legality by declaring a small percentage of their gold exports while pocketing huge profits and avoiding official taxes from illicit trade. This means that the gold smuggled out of DRC which flows on to the legal international gold market is tied to criminality, money laundering, armed groups and human rights abuses, according to the report.

The London Bullion Market Association published recommendations in November 2020 to reduce the illicit gold trade, but over the past hundred years little has changed.

Kamituga has been a mining town since the 1920s, when gold was discovered there, and a succession of big companies arrived.

The Kivu Mining Society and the Canadian company Banro Corporation, which has the principal mining concession in the town, control most of South Kivu’s gold deposits. Banro suspended operations in September 2019 due to rebel militia activity in the province. The company had been tolerant of artisanal mining on its concessions but has discouraged illegal mechanised efforts to extract gold.

Most of the miners are young men, but more and more women are drawn to the work in the hope of earning more than they can from agriculture. But female miners face discrimination and obstacles from local authorities, and have to sell through middlemen, according to the World Bank. Women have the least profitable jobs in the mines, depriving them of bargaining power when it comes to pay and working conditions. They are also vulnerable to sexual exploitation and violence. Women have started to unite and have built a network known by the French acronym of Renafem (National Network of Women in Mining), to fight discrimination.

Efforts to introduce greater transparency into DRC’s mining sector have seen minimal progress in a trade that enriches individuals and companies far from Kamituga’s murky rivers and hills. With little political will to drive real change, it seems the situation for those living on some of the richest soil in the world will remain precarious.

Source: The Guardian

“The nation’s mining sector presently accounts for 98% of exports, 18% of GDP and 11% of jobs. If the DRC captures 20% of the market share for battery manufacturing, it can add round US$54 billion to its revenue and lift its GDP tremendously,” says UN Beneath-Secretary-Basic Vera Songwe.

Africa is a resource-rich continent, dwelling to some 30% of the world’s recognized mineral reserves, together with 40% of recognized gold and as much as 90% of chromium and platinum reserves.

For hundreds of years, this mineral wealth has been extracted by international nations or corporations with little or no worth returned to the international locations they’re taken from, leaving Africa with little to realize from the worldwide mineral provide chain.

The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is in search of to alter that unequal dynamic, taking the primary steps to constructing a sustainable battery worth chain inside the DRC and higher Africa with the help of the brand new Democratic Republic of Congo Battery Council.

What’s the DRC Battery Council?

The primary goal of the Democratic Republic of Congo’s DRC-Africa Enterprise Discussion board in 2021 was to foster “the event of a battery, electrical automobile and renewable power worth chain and market in Africa”.

The DRC-Africa Enterprise Discussion board – after two hours of roundtable debate – introduced collectively high-level stakeholders to type the Democratic Republic of Congo’s Battery Council with three strategic goals:

• Assist worth creation of strategic minerals in Africa and strengthen productive capabilities within the battery worth chain, to generate job creation on the continent through the battery worth chain;
• Guarantee a socially, environmentally accountable and sustainable battery worth chain, which improves the lives of girls and the youth; and
• Encourage native and African champions to spend money on the battery business.

The council intends to arrange a particular monetary automobile to facilitate non-public investments and the participation of the inhabitants, and also will:

• Leverage partnerships to draw and promote funding and innovation and expertise for the transformation of Africa’s strategic minerals;
• Speed up intra-African commerce, expertise constructing and analysis to unlock innovation alongside the battery worth chain leveraging the African Continental Free Commerce Space (AfCFTA);
• Collaborate to advertise intensive partnerships and far-reaching exchanges of modern concepts to make sure that the battery worth chain is sustainable and accrues worth to the native economic system;
• Catalyse, fast-track and scale up motion in direction of the imaginative and prescient; and
• Facilitate the era of evidence-based research, knowledge, data on the battery worth chain within the DRC and Africa.

The council’s objectives have garnered help from the UN Financial Fee for Africa, which champions financial cooperation amongst its member states.

“The DRC is on the coronary heart of the battery worth chain, as it’s dwelling to about 70% of world’s cobalt reserves,” UN Beneath-Secretary-Basic and govt secretary of the Financial Fee for Africa Vera Songwe stated.

“The nation’s mining sector presently accounts for 98% of exports, 18% of GDP and 11% of jobs.

“If the DRC captures 20% of the market share for battery manufacturing, it can add round US$54 billion to its revenue and lift its GDP tremendously.”

The pinnacle of state of the DRC and present chair of the African Union Fee (AU), Félix-Antoine Tshisekedi Tshilombo, additionally expressed his enthusiasm for the council to start pursuing its objectives: “The machine is now launched, it’s mandatory to start out proper after this discussion board.”

Who’s concerned?

The important thing members included representatives of Zambia, Tanzania and Morocco, the UN Financial Fee for Africa, African Union Fee and Afreximbank.

Different organisations included Africa Finance Cooperation, African Improvement Financial institution Group, Bosch Africa, The Arab Financial institution for Financial Improvement in Africa, and AVZ Minerals Ltd (ASX:AVZ).

AVZ Minerals was the one aspiring mining firm to be invited to the discussion board, which managing director Nigel Ferguson sees as a logical selection.

“We’re sitting with one of many globally vital lithium and tin sources and the present geopolitical local weather is gaining higher give attention to inexperienced expertise,” Ferguson stated.

“The Australian Ambassador visited only recently and she or he stated the DRC President, Felix Tshisekedi, was very eager on having extra Australian corporations come and do enterprise in nation as a result of we have an excellent fame for our technical experience, our transparency and our professionalism.

“We additionally recognise the significance of getting a local people that is realising profit from a nationwide asset.”

AVZ Minerals has constructed its model on a close to ‘zero emissions’ operation, with an impartial greenhouse fuel evaluation confirming the Manono Lithium and Tin Mission might have one of many lowest carbon footprints of any exhausting rock lithium mine on the planet.

“The DRC and Africa are strategically positioned to play a pivotal position within the international transition to wash power and decarbonisation and the Manono challenge will tremendously help to enhance the fortunes of the Congolese folks, which AVZ Minerals could be very supportive (of),” Ferguson commented.

Challenges to be overcome

There are lots of structural challenges to be overcome earlier than the DRC Battery Council can meet its objectives, not least of which is power and transport infrastructure.

The DRC presently operates underneath a big electrical energy deficit, the place as soon as it equipped extra power to its neighbours.

Secretary-Basic of EGC (Basic Cobalt Firm) and power skilled Vincent-Noël Vika Raissa Kikunda stated that overcoming this primary hurdle was paramount, and “the nation should make investments a billion {dollars} every year to hope to unravel its electrical energy drawback”.

Secretary-Basic Vika highlights that with out entry to financing and sovereign ensures, long-term power buy contracts might fill the hole.

DRC will even possible want a extra sturdy rail community, doubtlessly a big industrial port and higher integration of the native inhabitants into the electrical battery business.

The non-public sector shall be integral to the upskilling of DRC residents, a task AVZ Minerals is already engaged in.

The mining firm has plans to construct and fit-out a college at Manono, the native city adjoining to AVZ’s mining challenge, and likewise intends to attract on a big pool of intensive mining expertise within the type of domestically recruited on-the-job traineeships.

“Giving locals a chance to have a ability or a commerce and uplift themselves is one thing that is very near us,” Ferguson defined.

“The DRC is properly endowed with not solely pure mineral sources but additionally of their folks. There’s an extended historical past of mining within the nation and many individuals are very technically succesful.

“I am completely snug with the truth that there’s sufficient technical capability right here to have the ability to fulfil these roles.”  

Ferguson additionally highlighted a necessity for political stability and regulatory flexibility throughout higher Africa, usually cited as one of many main causes the continent might be dangerous to spend money on.

David McLachlan-Karr, the Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator of the UN in DRC, commented that the Congo has the capability to alter the distribution of advantages from the inexperienced mineral worth chains.

“Traders imagine on this challenge and are concerned. The work shall be very advanced, requiring a centered strategy,” McLachlan-Karr stated.

“Investing on this sector in DRC gained’t simply yield monetary returns, however shall be important for the worldwide reaching of the Paris settlement, and bettering lives in DRC.”

Source: Bojuri

The U.S. aims to cut its greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030 as part of its commitment to tackling climate change, but might be lacking the critical minerals needed to achieve its goals.

The American green economy will rely on renewable sources of energy like wind and solar, along with the electrification of transportation. However, local production of the raw materials necessary to produce these technologies, including solar panels, wind turbines, and electric vehicles, is lacking. Understandably, this has raised concerns in Washington.

In this graphic, based on data from the U.S. Geological Survey, we list all of the minerals that the government has deemed critical to both the economic and national security of the United States.

What are Critical Minerals?

A critical mineral is defined as a non-fuel material considered vital for the economic well-being of the world’s major and emerging economies, whose supply may be at risk. This can be due to geological scarcity, geopolitical issues, trade policy, or other factors.

In 2018, the U.S. Department of the Interior released a list of 35 critical minerals. The new list, released in February 2022, contains 15 more commodities.

Much of the increase in the new list is the result of splitting the rare earth elements and platinum group elements into individual entries rather than including them as “mineral groups.” In addition, the 2022 list of critical minerals adds nickel and zinc to the list while removing helium, potash, rhenium, and strontium.

The challenge for the U.S. is that the local production of these raw materials is extremely limited.

For instance, in 2021 there was only one operating nickel mine in the country, the Eagle mine in Michigan. The facility ships its concentrates abroad for refining and is scheduled to close in 2025. Likewise, the country only hosted one lithium mine, the Silver Peak Mine in Nevada.

At the same time, most of the country’s supply of critical minerals depends on countries that have historically competed with America.

China’s Dominance in Minerals

Perhaps unsurprisingly, China is the single largest supply source of mineral commodities for the United States.

Cesium, a critical metal used in a wide range of manufacturing, is one example. There are only three pegmatite mines in the world that can produce cesium, and all were controlled by Chinese companies in 2021.

Furthermore, China refines nearly 90% of the world’s rare earths. Despite the name, these elements are abundant on the Earth’s crust and make up the majority of listed critical minerals. They are essential for a variety of products like EVs, advanced ceramics, computers, smartphones, wind turbines, monitors, and fiber optics.

After China, the next largest source of mineral commodities to the United States has been Canada, which provided the United States with 16 different elements in 2021.

The Rising Demand for Critical Minerals

As the world’s clean energy transitions gather pace, demand for critical minerals is expected to grow quickly.

According to the International Energy Association, the rise of low-carbon power generation is projected to triple mineral demand from this sector by 2040.

The shift to a sustainable economy is important, and consequently, securing the critical minerals necessary for it is just as vital.