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Green Minerals, Grey Realities: Can Africa Avoid Another Resource Curse?
Across the plains of Namibia, the copper belt of the DRC, and the lithium fields of Zimbabwe, a quiet race is underway. It’s not a new one, though the names have changed. Cobalt. Lithium. Rare...
Follow the Money: Why Africa Must Demand Accountability in Climate Finance
It is one thing to pledge billions. It’s another to deliver them, transparently, equitably, and in ways that change lives. In the aftermath of every COP summit or climate finance dialogue, we hear...
Beyond the Buzzwords: Why Africa’s Energy Transition Must Centre People, Not Just Technology
Across conference halls, government roundtables and investor summits, the phrase “energy transition” echoes with growing urgency. Africa is expected to move from energy poverty into a...
Clean or Compromised? The Dirty Dilemma of Refining Africa’s Critical Minerals
Africa is home to more than 30% of the world’s critical minerals; cobalt, lithium, manganese, graphite, all essential for the global energy transition. But while the world’s richest economies are...
The Corridor of Promise: Can Lobito Deliver a New Path for Africa’s Minerals?
From Angola’s Atlantic coastline to the copper belts of the Democratic Republic of Congo and Zambia, a rail corridor is being carved through the heart of Africa’s mineral wealth. The Lobito Corridor,...
Africa’s Climate Finance Crisis: The Debt Trap Undermining a Greener Future
In the heart of Africa, a paradox unfolds. A continent so rich in renewable resources, from sun to wind and lithium to cobalt, is simultaneously suffocating under the weight of financial obligations...
Natural Gas: Africa’s False Dawn or Stepping Stone to a Just Energy Future?
In Mozambique’s Cabo Delgado region, natural gas rigs cast long shadows over once-quiet fishing villages. Thousands of kilometres away, South Africa hurries to finalise liquefied natural gas (LNG)...
From Raw Deals to Real Power: Can South Africa's Critical Minerals Strategy Deliver?
South Africa has just made a bold move. Its newly unveiled Critical Minerals Strategy signals a shift from being a raw material supplier to a regional powerhouse in mineral beneficiation and green...
Beneath the Surface: How Zambia’s Mining Disaster Exposes the Human Cost of the Energy Transition
On a quiet morning last month, disaster struck in Zambia’s Copperbelt. A tailings dam at a Chinese-owned copper mine burst, releasing toxic sludge into the Kafue River. Communities downstream woke to...
Mission 300: Africa's Power Surge or Just Another Mirage?
Africa stands on the edge of an electrification revolution. The Mission 300 project, launched at the 2025 Sustainable Energy Dialogue, aims to provide electricity access to 300 million Africans by...
Africa's New Scramble: The High Cost of Critical Minerals Without Justice
I once stood at a dusty roadside in Kolwezi, in the heart of the Democratic Republic of Congo’s copper and cobalt belt, watching young boys haul sacks of ore barely larger than themselves. Their bare...
Green Goals, Grey Areas: The Politics of China-Africa Energy Relations
A few years ago, during a civil society exchange in Nairobi, a Kenyan energy advocate told me something that has stayed with me: “We’ve got panels. We’ve got Chinese engineers. But what we don’t have...