South Africa’s critical minerals agenda can be advanced significantly through strategic partnerships and technical collaboration between government and the private sector. This was the overall view at the G20 Critical Minerals Stakeholder Engagement conference hosted in Sandton by the department of mineral and petroleum resources on 29 July.

“A common or shared vision is important. But what needs to accompany that is collaboration and planning together between business and government. And in that long-term outlook, what is also important is an alignment on incentives. Governments are incentivised by ensuring that they meet delivery on the social mandate, while business is incentivised by profit. And these two issues do not necessarily have to be in conflict with one another,” pointed out Mzila Mthenjane, CEO of The Minerals Council South Africa, who was part of a technical panel on Public-Private Partnerships in Harnessing Critical Minerals for Inclusive Growth and Sustainable Development.

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Public-private partnerships can be a useful tool for ensuring that South African workers benefit meaningfully from the critical minerals boom, said De Wet Blaauw, specialist legal practitioner: occupational health and safety at Solidarity Trade Union, who also took part in the panel discussion.

“They must be used as vehicles for inclusive development, which includes skills development, decent work, and inclusion in the downstream value chain. They must also include mandatory skills transfer programmes, such as apprenticeships, so we need joint investment in technical colleges, especially those aligning with the mining qualifications authority that’s working together with mining organisations and private companies to fund students with their technical training.”

Collaboration for a greater good

Minister of mineral and petroleum resources Gwede Mantashe in his opening speech said South Africa, with a history of mining spanning over a century, has transitioned from gold mining routes to underpin modern industrialisation and digital technologies relying heavily on a diverse range of critical minerals including platinum, manganese, iron ore, chrome, coal, lithium, nickel and rare earth elements.

“I am making this point because South Africans are struggling to unlock the view that mining is gold mining. They can’t settle well with the decline of gold mining. Other minerals are growing at a pace that we cannot cope with. In this change from purely a gold mining destination to a mining destination, despite this long history of mining, countries that are endowed with natural resources such as ours have had to contend with underdevelopment, inadequate investment in exploration and extraction, underdevelopment and inadequate investment in processing and inadequate downstream economic benefits. Largely due to over-concentration, we mine and make other countries rich. And that tells you that it’s time for exporting processed minerals and not just raw commodities. When we export raw commodities, we are exporting wealth and we must change that,” said Mantashe.

He added that, for this to be achieved, there needs to be collaboration. “This G20 Critical Minerals Stakeholder Agreement event seeks to unite governments, industry and knowledge institutions in translating the G20 Critical Minerals Framework so that we can begin to get concrete results. Given its portion as part of the G20 members responsible for the majority of global GDP, trade and industrial output, South Africa is uniquely positioned to foster inclusive and collaborative strategies,” he said, adding that that’s why institutions like the World Gold Council have also been invited to the event to share expertise on issues such as addressing illegal mining and illicit trading of crystal minerals globally.

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Mantashe said, hosted under the theme of solidarity, equality and sustainability, South Africa’s G20 presidency provides an opportunity to focus on critical minerals as a priority area for collaborative effort.

“The emergence of G20 is quite big. Even the emergence of BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) poses a threat in destabilising the bilateral forces. And we must not be apologetic for being part of such initiatives. If being a member of BRICS attracts tariffs, it says to us let’s diversify our commodities more aggressively and not focus on where tariffs are imposed on us. We must sell where we get optimal market value for our minerals.”

However, he said, for there to be buy in, the space must be created for cooperation to be voluntary. “This means willing partners. Not imposed or compelled. People should be willing to work together. That’s why we have the mining charter. It is a voluntary policy. It is important for allowing us to achieve our social licence to operate”

As we strive to make Africa a better continent, there needs to be a working together, said Mantashe. “Accordingly, it is recommended that G20 members and partners uphold these principles in their collaborative efforts on critical mineral governance. G20 member countries are asked to promote the alignment of existing and new exploration initiatives with the goals of expanding mapping and exploration. Intensifying exploration through collaborative partnership and alignment will help alleviate the scarcity of certain critical minerals and diversify the geographic sources of production. Simply stated is that if we don’t explore, we will not exploit critical minerals.”