- This event has passed.
High-Level Expert Roundtable On Critical Minerals & Just Energy Transition Diplomacy
(Pictured, Mama Graça Michel and the SARW team. Left to Right: Davie Malungisa, Monica Mbugua, Dr. Claude Kabemba, Mama Graça Michel, Gerson Mendes, Sandra Sitole, Georges Mbuyu)
Between the 25th and 26th of March, SARW hosted the Expert High-Level Roundtable on Critical Minerals & Just Energy Transition Diplomacy, bringing together policymakers, experts, civil society leaders, and development partners to explore how Africa can strengthen its voice in global minerals governance and climate diplomacy while advancing equitable resource-based industrialisation.
Following two days of high-level deliberations in Magaliesberg, South Africa, leaders from civil society, business, academia, diplomacy, and African institutions issued a bold call: the African Union must declare Green Minerals a continental emergency.
This is not just a statement—it is a shift in strategy.
The gathering put forward a unified agenda to:
- Establish an African Green Minerals Producers’ Coalition under the AU, led by a Heads of State Steering Committee.
- Launch a High-Level Panel of eminent persons on Green Minerals to drive Green Minerals diplomacy across national, regional, continental, and global levels.
- Set up a Technical Support Committee to support the High-Level panel
The meeting called on African countries to:
- Move decisively from raw material exports to value addition, industrialisation, and regional value chains on African soil.
- Strengthen geological data systems, research, skills development, and South–South technology and innovation partnerships.
What makes this different? Immediate action.
Concrete, time-bound commitments have already been agreed— Grounded in the principle of One Voice, One Strategy.
This initiative is about repositioning Africa—not as a supplier at the margins—but as a central actor in the global green minerals value chain and energy transition.
We were pleased to have Mama Graça Michel deliver the keynote address at the High-Level Roundtable, leaving every participant inspired and charged with determination to produce solutions to the emergency facing Africa.
Read the Communique released following the meeting on our home page: www.sarwatch.co.za