The Futures of Critical Minerals in SADC project addresses the urgent need to reimagine the region’s approach to resource governance in a shifting global economy. As demand for minerals like cobalt, lithium and rare earth elements accelerates, this initiative investigates sustainable, strategic pathways to leverage these resources for long-term regional development.
Project Rationale
Southern Africa is rich in critical minerals essential for clean energy transitions. However, the region faces challenges such as weak governance, environmental concerns and limited industrialisation. Without proactive strategies, SADC nations risk remaining mere suppliers of critical raw materials rather than key players in the global value chain. This project integrates anticipatory governance to foster policies that balance economic development, sustainability and equity.
Anticipatory governance is a proactive, systems-based approach that integrates strategic foresight, adaptive policymaking, experimentation and stakeholder collaboration to navigate complex and uncertain futures. It enables decision-makers to identify key uncertainties, develop future-ready policies and co-create resilient governance frameworks that respond to emerging risks and opportunities before they happen. In the critical minerals sector, anticipatory governance ensures sustainable resource management, economic competitiveness and social equity by fostering long-term thinking, policy experimentation and adaptive feedback systems.
Project Objectives
- Exploring country barriers and enablers to proactive resource governance of the critical minerals ecosystem in SADC.
- Navigating the SADC Critical Minerals Transition by mapping preferred futures with a range of mining experts and stakeholders to co-create strategic pathways.
- Re-imagining the critical minerals ecosystem in SADC and introducing the resource-balanced economy as an emerging anticipatory resource governance approach to achieve intergenerational fairness.
- Proposing a draft strategic framework for implementing systemic innovations to achieve the preferred futures of critical minerals in SADC.
Outcomes
- A strategic roadmap for anticipatory governance in the SADC critical minerals sector.
- Recommendations for policy reforms that prioritise sustainability and social equity.
- Enhanced stakeholder engagement through futures literacy workshops and expert policy dialogues.
- Development of innovative financial mechanisms to counter investment risks and economic dependency.
- Contributing towards a climate-resilient, diversified and socially equitable economy by 2050 by building the anticipatory governance capacity of Southern African stakeholders and policymakers in the critical minerals ecosystem.
Explore the publications in our series on Critical Minerals:
Special Report 1:
Special Report 2:
Special Report 3:
Special Report 4:
Watch the video:
Below is an overview of the Futures of Critical Minerals in SADC project.
