From vibrating smartphones to satellites, critical minerals are embedded in the technologies that people worldwide use daily. As world governments look for ways to slow climate change, demand for critical minerals, the foundation of less-polluting transportation and renewable energy infrastructure, continues to rise.

A DW data analysis found that countries across Africa are increasingly important in producing critical minerals. Most of the cobalt, platinum, tantalum and manganese in use are extracted on the continent.

According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), critical minerals could boost sub-Saharan Africa's GDP by 12% in the next 25 years. In fact, the IMF reports that the global energy "transition, if managed properly, has the potential to transform the region."

The race to extract critical minerals has reshaped cities and fueled conflict between countries such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda.

"We're going to be contributing to the climate issue, but unfortunately, we may not benefit as we should," said Sylvain Ilunga Muleka, a senior metallurgy technician in Kolwezi, in the southern DRC. He is the leader of the efforts to relocate members of his community, where expanding mining operations are forcing residents to move elsewhere.

"Many African countries have fragile governments, and that makes the respect of environmental principles by mining companies across Africa a major challenge," said Jimmy Munguriek, a lawyer and the DRC country director of Resource Matters, an NGO that focuses on research into and advocacy for the protection of natural resources.

The negative environmental impacts from extraction include water pollution."The revenues generated by the exploitation of strategic minerals are not necessarily shared equitably between the state and local communities," Munguriek said.

In 2024, UN Trade and Development (UNCTAD) estimated that African countries were only generating about 40% of the potential revenue from the extraction of critical minerals.

What countries have the most critical minerals?

With deposits of critical minerals scattered across the continent and the globe, some regions of the world are highly dependent on others for supply. For example, the European Union has identified 34 raw materials as crucial to its economy, most of which are found only beyond the bloc's borders.

According to DW's analysis, almost 70% of the global supply of platinum, a metal used in fuel cells and digital tools such as computer hard drives, is produced in South Africa. DRC produces about the same share of cobalt used in electric car batteries and solar energy storage. Much of the DRC's supply of the mineral coltan, from which the metal tantalum is extracted, is mined in the country's eastern regions, where the government is engaged in an armed conflict with the Rwanda-backed M23 rebels.

Other countries in Africa hold small but significant shares of the global reserves of critical minerals. In 2023, for example, Ghana mined about 4% of the world's supply of manganese, a mineral essential to producing the steel used to build wind turbines and robots.

What makes these minerals critical?

As much of the world moves away from fossil fuels, critical minerals are essential to emerging technologies, including drones and robotics.

The demand for critical minerals from the clean energy sector for products such as electric motors and photovoltaics is expected to increase to over 20,000 kilotonnes (22 million US tons) by 2035 from the roughly 10,000 kilotonnes used in 2024.

Without these materials, renewable energies, the defense sector and other strategic industries face serious disruption: The price of resources will go up, jobs in these sectors will be lost, and the energy transition will slow down, according to the International Energy Agency.

There is a higher demand for some minerals than for others. Among clean technologies, graphite is mainly used in electric cars, which saw a 25% increase in sales in 2024. However, the increasing use of silicon, a material that enhances the performance of EV batteries, and a shift toward synthetic graphite will gradually reduce the sector's need for the mineral in its natural form. This will slightly shrink the demand for key minerals for use in cleaner technologies by 2045.

Copper, long used in traditional technologies, will remain the most needed mineral for cleaner technologies such as electric vehicles and photovoltaics in the coming years. According to the most recent forecast from the International Energy Agency, the demand for lithium, vanadium and manganese is expected to spike in the coming two decades.

How have prices for critical materials evolved?

Following price spikes in 2022 and 2023, the market values of battery metals, copper and rare earths have returned to the range of where they were in January 2020, the baseline month. Battery metals and copper have been up somewhat over the past half-decade, and rare earths are down slightly. However, demand for resources for cleaner-energy technologies is expected to rise.

Though cobalt prices have slightly increased since February, the price per metric ton (1.1 US tons) is nearly a third of what it was in 2022. This decline is attributed to global overproduction. China is also suspected of maintaining low prices to build up strategic reserves.

On the other hand, the development and expansion of cleaner technologies are adding pressure on prices. Lithium-ion batteries, which do not use cobalt, offer manufacturers an alternative to depending on China, a country expected to refine more than 70% of the world's cobalt by 2030.

Where do African countries export critical minerals?

In 2023, Africa exported about $266 billion worth of critical minerals, accounting for 10.6% of global trade, according to the United Nations.

China, the world's largest importer of critical minerals, receives the bulk of the exports from Africa for refining. Other importers include India, Australia and Norway.

Mauritania, Angola and Uganda send over 98% of their critical mineral exports to China. DRC sends 88% to China, while Cote d'Ivoire sends about half.

Munguriek, of Resource Matters, said this was because "China rules the critical minerals market and is not rigid about respecting rules on good governance, transparency, accountability and human and environmental rights."

"If the West is going to invest more again in the critical minerals sector, African states will need to implement rules on transparency, accountability and good governance," Munguriek said.

In 2025, the Democratic Republic of Congo entered into negotiations toward a peace deal with Rwanda. Under the deal, the DRC would provide the United States access to critical minerals for its role as mediator.

Is regional refinement the next step?

UNCTAD warned in 2024 that the critical minerals boom can bring both "many opportunities" and plenty of potential risks for countries that are dependent on the exports of such goods.

"To fully capitalize on their mineral wealth, developing countries must go beyond merely supplying raw minerals and advance up the value chains," the UNCTAD report said.

This means that African producers could export critical minerals at a higher price by refining them after extraction. For example, the continent has the minerals needed to make lithium batteries, but only 10% of the total value from mining to finished product stays in Africa, according to the African Development Bank.

Refining domestically, however, can be an energy-intensive process. "We need a great quantity of electricity," Munguriek said. "Take the case of DRC: The law says that companies must not export raw minerals, but the energy deficit is a barrier to transform them."

Though the DRC's 2018 mining code generally bans the export of raw minerals, legal exemptions allow China to ship almost all of the country's raw cobalt. At the same time, the UN has reported that M23 smuggled at least 150 metric tons of coltan from DRC to Rwanda per month in 2024, leading to a glut of minerals of dubious origin in the Great Lakes region's otherwise well-tracked mineral supply chain.

"Energy policy will lead to local refining, which will bring added value," Munguriek said. "But, without good governance, it won't work. Africa must take strict measures against corruption and partner up with other countries."

Edited by: Gianna-Carina Grün, Dirke Köpp and Milan Gagnon

For data, code and methodology behind this analysis, see this GitHub repository. 

  More data-driven stories from DW can be found here.