African governments have been advised to jettison environmentally destructive mining deals associated with some extractive industries in favour of cleaner processing enabled by cutting-edge technologies.

The recommendation was made in an article by Maureen Farrell, vice president for global partnerships at Valar, a Nairobi-based American strategic advisory firm that supports the mining and security sectors.

In the article, titled “Shifting Sands: African Agency in Mining Deals,” Farrell commended African leaders for demanding mining deals that go beyond royalties to include in-country benefits that increase value before export. She warned, however, against African governments accepting deals that are environmentally destructive.

A part of the article reads: “The sands of geopolitics are shifting, particularly in the global race for Africa’s minerals. African governments have a choice of partners, each with their faults and advantages.  But this range of partners is growing. This is putting African nations into the driver’s seat, allowing them to assume more control and autonomy in negotiating mining deals.   

“In the Cold War era, there was a simple dichotomy of partners on offer for African countries: the Soviets or the ‘West.’ Today, there are other significant players who have always maintained an interest in Africa but are now investing in the continent in new ways, such as Türkiye, the UAE, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, India, Japan, Brazil, and others.  The addition of capital from these countries is changing the landscape of the mining sector. 

“The mining industry is by definition extractive.  The whole point is to extract resources from the ground, add value through refining and processing, then sell them for use in advanced technology, manufacturing, power generation, jewellery and a host of other sectors. Given the ugly history of extraction from Africa during the pre-colonial and colonial eras, there is good reason for a renewed focus on the sector’s challenging issues, including protection of the environment and ensuring community receive their due from their natural resources.   

“At the 2026 Investing in African Mining Indaba meeting in Cape Town, one could feel a palpable sense that African governments are demanding mining deals with more favourable terms. This is not limited to royalties but also focused on in-country benefits that increase value before export. Guinea, Mali, and Tanzania are all following different tracks politically, but they are all moving toward the same end goal of retaining more value from their mineral wealth.   

“Guinea’s President Doumbouya cancelled more than 50 mining contracts in 2025… He targeted those which were not adhering to the terms of their contracts for the localisation of processing, working beyond the terms of the licences, and companies that were sitting on their concessions and not developing them as mining assets.   

“President Samia Sulu Hasan is pushing for greater sovereignty over Tanzania’s natural wealth through economic benefit-sharing principles. These include stipulations for 50/50 profit sharing between the government and investors, and mandatory partnerships for mining operations with 100% owned Tanzanian companies.   

“Each of these approaches will likely lead to different outcomes, and none are perfect, but they are illustrative of the same theme: African nations seeking to put greater pressure on the extractives industry to share the wealth with domestic producers. 

“Conducting refining and processing in-country is a major feature of this movement to keep more of Africa’s mineral wealth on the continent. President Ruto seeks to make Kenya a regional processing hub for its own minerals, as well as those from neighbouring countries. He is doing so by steering mining bidders on upcoming concessions toward in-country processing solutions that can be scaled and expanded to accommodate other minerals.

“For example, American companies like Massachusetts-based Phoenix Tailings are showing the mining sector that there are clean refining options out there that will not generate toxins in the environment, drain the local water table, or require the redirection of scarce power resources to a refining plant.   

“With market incentives encouraging innovation and expansion and zero-waste, nontoxic avenues, African governments do not have to accept the status quo of environmental destruction…Instead, Africans, in partnership with countries such as the United States, are now well positioned to leapfrog the dirty and dangerous processes that have historically defined the mining industry. New mining, refining, and processing technologies brought by cutting-edge European and American tech are at the forefront of this drive towards sustainability in the sector. 

“As the geopolitical tectonic plates shift toward multipolarity, there is growing space for African governments to gain the rightful upper hand in mining deals. The race to secure access to Africa’s mineral wealth is driving this change… There are investors and operators from the UAE, Saudi Arabia, India, and others, presenting African governments with a wider array of choices and, therefore, a stronger negotiating position from which to demand better terms.  This is not only in the mining sector, but also in investment in the sustainable power and infrastructure needed to support in-country refinement and processing. 

“With this increasing competition comes an opportunity for African leaders to seize on, to redress historic imbalances, tackle environmentally degrading practices, and open the sector to open and transparent procurement processes in the mining sector. This resetting of existing power structures will help prevent African mineral wealth from slipping away, like sand through your fingers.”