PAMOJA: Connecting the Struggles and Amplifying Voices for Justice in Mining and Energy Systems

There was a call for connecting the struggles and amplifying voices for justice in mining and energy systems during the inaugural PAMOJA Continental Strategy Planning Workshop and Official Launch in Harare from 25 to 26 February 2026.

The meeting unfolded at a decisive historical juncture when Africa’s critical minerals, including lithium, cobalt, platinum, copper, and rare earths, now sit at the centre of global geopolitical competition and energy transition strategies.

As the world races toward decarbonisation, Africa is once again positioned as a supplier of raw materials for global transformation. Yet for many African communities, this “green transition” feels painfully familiar. For centuries, extractivism has meant displacement, land dispossession, labour exploitation, gendered poverty, and environmental destruction.

Dr Godfrey Kanyenze, the Executive Director of Labour and Economic Development Research Institute of Zimbabwe (LDRIZ), speaking during a session titled “Social Movements and People Power: Connecting the Struggles and Amplifying Voices for Justice in Mining and Energy Systems,” in his keynote intervention, was not only analytical. It was historical, political, and deeply personal. It was a call to remember, reconnect, and rebuild social movements capable of transforming Africa’s mining and energy systems.

Dr Kanyenze revisited the theory of the enclave economy, associated with scholars such as Guy Mhone, who analysed Zambia’s Copperbelt and broader African political economy.

At the heart of this model lies a structural division:

• A small, capital-intensive formal sector (often resource-based and externally integrated)
• A large, marginalised informal or non-formal sector, where the majority survive under precarious conditions

This structure was not accidental. It was engineered during colonial rule and formalised through events such as the Berlin Conference, where European powers partitioned Africa for extraction.