Africa urged to finance own mineral development

ACCRA: TANZANIA has urged African countries to reduce reliance on foreign aid and mobilise domestic resources to finance strategic mining projects, including mineral exploration, value addition and the development of mineral processing and refining industries.

The call was made by Minister for Minerals Anthony Mavunde  while chairing a ministerial meeting on “Financing Africa’s Mineral Future: From Exploration to Refining” during the Mining in Motion 2026 conference in Accra, Ghana, on Tuesday.

The meeting focused on how African and international financial institutions can improve access to capital across the entire mineral value chain.

Mr Mavunde said greater reliance on domestic financing will enable African countries to develop their mineral resources, create jobs, build technical skills and increase export earnings from value-added mineral products.

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“It is important for African countries to begin by using their domestic capacity to finance the development of the mining sector instead of relying heavily on external funding,” he said.

He said implementing domestic financing strategies requires firm policy decisions, political commitment and collaboration among governments, financial institutions and the private sector.

Citing Tanzania’s experience, Mr Mavunde said the government has established a mechanism to allocate 10 per cent of revenue collected from the mining sector to detailed geological exploration.

He said the initiative aims to expand geological surveys and identify the country’s mineral resources, noting that only about 16 per cent of Tanzania’s land area has undergone detailed geological exploration, leaving considerable potential for further discoveries.

“President Samia Suluhu Hassan’s political commitment to allocating 10 per cent of mining sector revenue to detailed exploration is an important step towards reducing reliance on donor funding and enabling Tanzania to finance the exploration of its own mineral resources using domestic revenue,” he said.