Critical minerals took center stage in global diplomacy this September. At the BRICS summit in New Delhi, whose 11 members include the United Arab Emirates, leaders called for “reliable, responsible, diversified, resilient, fair, sustainable, and just” critical mineral supply chains that preserve the sovereign rights of resource-rich countries. Ten days later, at the United Nations General Assembly in New York, Secretary-General António Guterres launched a Country Support Mechanism to help resource-rich developing countries build domestic mineral value chains while strengthening environmental and human safeguards. Zambia, which has signed a mineral-cooperation memorandum of understanding with Saudi Arabia, is among the initiative’s first six partner countries.
As African governments seek more from mineral partnerships than finance alone, Gulf investors will secure durable access not merely through capital, but by embedding commitments that deliver shared value, including environmental and social performance, into investments from the outset.
Diversifying beyond oil
Critical minerals underpin electrification, grid expansion, batteries, and advanced manufacturing, placing them at the intersection of industrial policy, climate ambition, and geopolitical strategy. Demand for key energy minerals has continued to grow, while investment and refining capacity remain geographically concentrated, heightening concern over supply security, especially for copper. For Gulf states, securing access to these materials supports economic diversification and more resilient supply chains. Africa, which holds about 30 percent of the world’s critical mineral reserves, is therefore an increasingly important partner.
From Guinea’s bauxite sector to mining and infrastructure projects in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Mauritania, Namibia and Morocco, Gulf investors and companies are active across the continent, with engagement already spanning mine ownership, financing and commodity trading. In 2024, UAE-based International Resources Holding (IRH) acquired a 51 percent stake in Zambia’s Mopani Copper Mines, with the Zambian state retaining the remainder. Saudi Arabia’s Manara Minerals, a joint venture between the kingdom’s sovereign wealth fund and mining company Ma’aden, has explored investment opportunities in Zambian copper and nickel. Qatar-linked investors have also signaled interest in mining, energy, and infrastructure projects across the continent.
This Gulf presence is growing as Africa’s external finance landscape diversifies. Western development finance has tightened, and Chinese sovereign lending has declined from earlier highs, even though Chinese commercial involvement in African mining remains substantial. A wider pool of potential partners can increase African governments’ room to negotiate, not only over price and ownership, but over local processing, supplier development, jobs, transparency, and environmental safeguards. Zambia’s new local-content requirements illustrate how governments can use this shifting investment landscape to press for stronger domestic economic benefits.
The stakes
Mining reshapes land, consumes large volumes of water and can damage farming and freshwater systems, while the roads and power lines that serve a mine extend its footprint beyond a single site. When communities bear these costs, opposition and regulatory intervention can follow, eroding a project’s “social license to operate,” the local consent on which its stability depends. Zambia knows the stakes. In February 2025, a tailings dam at a copper mine in Chambishi suffered a catastrophic failure, releasing an estimated 50 million liters of acidic waste toward the Kafue River basin, which sustains roughly 60 percent of Zambia’s population. The incident triggered acute ecological damage, large‑scale disruption to water services and livelihoods, and raised serious concerns about long‑term contamination and health risks. The government ordered the mine’s owner to restore the river and compensate affected farmers, signaling likely elevated regulatory scrutiny and stronger expectations for tailings governance among investors and lenders, and illustrating how environmental damage can create political and commercial liabilities that persist well beyond the life of a single mine.
But foreign investment can cut either way. Where safeguards are weak, investors may reproduce damaging practices; where capital arrives with technology and stronger governance, environmental performance can improve—as seen in Chile’s copper sector, where early tailings regulations and continuous upgrades made foreign‑invested mines leaders in earthquake‑resistant, lower‑risk tailings storage. Agreements between governments can set expectations on local value, transparency, and environmental protection, but only if they include clear implementation mechanisms and accountability. Foreign investors can play a role here by influencing institutional expectations and practices in developing-country markets.
What the Gulf brings
Gulf investors may hold distinct advantages, beginning with capital. Gulf sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) are estimated to manage $4 trillion to $6 trillion, more than 40 percent of global sovereign-fund assets. SWFs account for more than 80 percent of the GCC’s outward investment, reflecting their central role in economic diversification and cross-border investment. This is state-linked capital with a potential to take a long-term strategic view, a useful fit for mining projects whose environmental and social risks may emerge long after the initial investment decision. Gulf SWF capital can also move faster and with fewer conditions than much of Western development finance. Yet Gulf capital is not unlimited: Domestic diversification priorities, geopolitical uncertainty, and project risk mean that African investments will still need to demonstrate commercial and strategic value.
While many investment frameworks have often placed greater emphasis on investor protection and resource access than on sustainable development, newer approaches are beginning to rebalance these objectives. Collaboration among investors, banks, and development finance institutions can reinforce this shift by establishing common environmental and social expectations across the mining lifecycle, particularly at the feasibility, design, and construction stages when the scope to avoid or reduce impacts is greatest. The principles underpinning the Gulf’s established Islamic finance markets may be starting to converge with sustainable investing frameworks, creating further grounding for a more integrated approach to projects and partnerships. This gives investors the opportunity to set conditions before committing capital.
Environmental and social commitments should be as contractual and measurable as financial ones. This means embedding targets, public reporting, and independent verification in shareholder agreements and financing terms, so that both investors and host governments can enforce them. It also means publishing baseline assessments and closure plans, and building benefit-sharing and accessible grievance mechanisms into project design in line with host-country law. Credible baseline assessments of biodiversity, water, land and livelihoods, and measurable targets for avoiding, reducing, restoring and, where necessary, compensating for impacts, can be incorporated into mine plans, shareholder agreements, financing terms and closure provisions.
A broader approach to protecting nature and people would also look beyond the mine itself, assessing how roads, power infrastructure, and other activities across the surrounding landscape and supply chain affect ecosystems and communities. Where projects affect landscapes shared by several operators, investors can support joint assessments and pooled financing for conservation, restoration, and community livelihood programs, helping ensure that individual projects contribute to healthier ecosystems and stronger local economies.
Gulf state-linked companies and investors also possess potentially relevant capabilities. Decades of operating in hot, water-scarce environments have built expertise in wastewater treatment, water reuse, energy efficiency, and large-scale infrastructure. When these capabilities are applied to mine design and operations, they could matter especially where mines compete with farms and communities for scarce water, including in arid mining regions such as Namibia or Morocco, as well as in water-richer regions, where treatment and reuse can reduce withdrawals and lower the risk of contaminated discharges. Mining’s high energy demand similarly creates room to pair projects with cleaner electricity and storage. In 2025, IRH signed a memorandum with its sister company ePointZero to decarbonize its operations, beginning with Mopani in Zambia. The announced work includes consideration of on-site renewable energy, grid optimization, intelligent infrastructure, water reuse, waste minimization, and sustainable sourcing. This early-stage commitment illustrates the types of measures Gulf-backed operators could embed at project level.
Turning capital into trust
Gulf states are already building a presence across Africa’s mineral belts, from Guinea’s bauxite to copper and cobalt in the DRC. Their capital, relevant technical capabilities, and government-to-government ties can make them increasingly competitive partners as African countries seek to expand mineral production while securing domestic value addition, decent jobs, and protection for the land and water on which communities depend. Environmental and social performance must therefore be treated as core investment considerations, embedded in agreements, mine plans, and financing terms through measurable targets, transparent reporting, and enforceable requirements. Done credibly, this can strengthen a project’s social license, reduce operational and regulatory risk, and turn capital into durable relationships. In a market where African governments can choose among partners, the Gulf’s most valuable asset may lie in its ability to build reliable, long-term partnerships that deliver on commitments and create shared value.
