By: Lindelwa Nonjaduka - graduate of the MPhil in Development Finance at Stellenbosch Business School and Founding Director of The Equilibrium Institute 

As the global community of mining industry leaders, investors, innovators and policymakers prepare for the upcoming 2026 Mining Indaba to be held from 9th - 12th February 2026, the test will be whether Africa can leverage the Mining Indaba to translate its resource abundance into industrial power.   

Following from the common themes emanated at the South Africa’s G20 Presidency and the African Union Week in 2025, Africa’s rich minerals are urgently needed worldwide yet the continent remains poor in the value derived from them. 

Equally, the common feature of the 2026 Mining Indaba centers on Africa’s rich minerals and the need for collaboration and partnerships between the private sector and government for a sustainable mining sector in Africa. Year in, year out, billions of investments in pledges are announced at each Mining Indaba, but Africa remains the main exporter of its raw minerals. 

Therefore, where are we missing the point?

We’re missing the point in not understanding that the problem is not a shortage of investments in Africa’s mining sector, but the design of investment itself. 

The investment model in Africa’s mining sector remains embedded on low value extraction and export efficiency. By design, mining projects are financed through foreign investments that require rapid capital recovery, thrive in environments with low regulatory barriers, and prioritise logistics corridors over industrial parks, and favour investor confidence and protection while shifting development costs such as infrastructure development to the government of the host country. This results in a mining sector that is integrated globally but structurally misaligned to the continent’s long term development goals. 

The Mining Indaba is not positioned to fix these structural problems. It is structured, by design and purpose, to match mining opportunities in Africa to investments, showcases innovation and new technologies that advance extraction and improve export efficiency. It prioritises returns on foreign capital over national development outcomes. Its success is measured by investment activity, policy signaling and reforms aimed at protecting investor confidence and foreign capital and not by the development outcomes as it is not a development planning forum.

Against the backdrop of infrastructure challenges, Africa’s ability to transform its mineral wealth into industrial power rests with, among other things, the political will of its leadership and meaningful collaboration with the private sector to renegotiate the legacy bilateral investment treaties in Africa’s mining sector and incorporate binding clauses on sustainability, structural formation and beneficiation. The renegotiations are crucial in avoiding legal threats that may ensue when introducing policy reforms aimed at promoting a sustainable mining sector. 

Some of the cases that demonstrate clashes between the objectives of legacy bilateral investment treaties and policy reforms and transformation initiatives aimed at promoting a sustainable African mining sector, include the following: 

• Barrick Gold, a Canadian mining company, lodged a dispute against the Mali government in 2023[1] at International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID)- an international investment dispute settlement mechanism under the World Bank- due to Mali’s implementation of new 2023 mining codes which sought 35% local ownership of mining proceeds and increases in taxes, among other things. However, Barrick Gold and the Mali government reached a USD 430 million settlement, resulting in Barrick Gold withdrawing the case in 2025.
• The government of Tanzania was ordered by ICSID to pay USD109 million in compensation to a group of mining companies from the United Kingdom (UK) for breaching the UK-Tanzania Bilateral Investment Treaty[2]. The government of Tanzania introduced amendments to Tanzania’s Mining Act of 2010 using Written Laws Act of 2017 and Mining Regulations of 2018, “retention of license” classification without any replacement. This meant removing mining rights from the private mining companies in Tanzania and giving them to the government of Tanzania such as government’s expropriation of one of the mines (Ntaka Hill Nickel Project) without compensation.
• On our home grounds, South Africa has a good story to tell on renegotiating the legacy bilateral treaties and that other African countries could learn from. Following the ICSID dispute between several Italian citizens and Luxemburg corporation in Piero Foresti, Laura de Carli vs Republic of South Africa at ICSID in 2006/2007, in which the claimant subsequently withdrew its case against the South African government for using the Mining Charter and Mineral and Petroleum Resource Development Act to promote equity in the mining sector. Through renegotiation at ICSID, the South African government revised the local ownership mining share targets and provided a breakdown of the 30% mining rights requirement. The outcome of the renegotiation process triggering South Africa to terminate several of its BITs with European countries and introduced the Protection of Investment Act of 2015, which among other things, provides for mediation and arbitration process to be facilitated by the department under the Trade and Industry Ministry, thus preferring domestic courts over ICSID for resolving investor-state disputes. 

African leaders also need to present a united front and speak with one voice when negotiating with private capital at the Mining Indaba. Engaging in bilateral negotiations as individual countries to secure mining deals weakens the leverage the continent has over its reach minerals and renders the Africa Mining Vision a far-fetched dream. 

Following on this year’s theme “Stronger Together: Progress through Partnership”, the 2026 Mining Indaba must decide whether it will remain a marketplace networking event for extraction of Africa’s rich mineral  or really live up to its theme by contributing to the realisation of Africa Mining Vision which advocates for value add and local beneficiation in Africa’s mining.