Kritik Madenlerde Afrika'nın Elit Çıkarına Dayalı Yönetimi Egemenlik Sanılmamalı

Elite capture of Africa’s critical minerals mustn’t be mistaken for resource sovereignty

Elite capture of Africa’s critical minerals mustn’t be mistaken for resource sovereignty The World Today mhiggins.drupal 26 May 2026 The exploitation of resource riches by unaccountable leaders is not the same as states stewarding mineral supplies for the benefit of their people, write Christopher Vandome and Tighisti Amare. The article ‘Critical mineral-rich Africa can look after itself’ published in the spring issue of The World Today addresses the capacity of African countries to make the most of the resources they may have. It correctly noted that leaders of these countries should assert ‘resource sovereignty’ for the benefit of their societies and economies. However, some of the examples it discusses are problematic. African political leadership and institutional configurations are the most important determinants of whether states benefit from their natural resources. Sovereign resource management on behalf of citizens can drive diversified development. By contrast, the capture of mineral wealth by narrow elites for personal enrichment and to secure external support for political survival perpetuates inequality and insecurity. Social media campaigns in Burkina Faso will have you believe that the nationalization of mining assets is a bold assertion of resource sovereignty. The former is the legitimate exercise of sovereignty through consensual contract renegotiation and the revision of regulatory regimes in ways that increase public benefit and transparency while maintaining trust with good-faith partners. The latter is ‘elite capture’, by which a small group seizes the levers of state and then uses control over mineral resources to strike opaque security and financial bargains often with malign actors, consolidating authoritarian governance rather than accountable institutions. Predatory actors As such, the article’s example of President Ibrahim Traoré’s mining reforms in Burkina Faso is perhaps not the best illustration of agency. The president came to power through a military coup in 2022 and now governs a country in which the state effectively controls just a fraction of national territory. The withdrawal in January 2025 of Burkina Faso from the regional bloc ECOWAS has weakened regional mechanisms for addressing insecurity and deepened tensions with neighbours. Social media campaigns, linked to the president’s brother, extol the virtues of African agency and will have you believe that the nationalization of mining assets is a bold assertion of resource sovereignty. The detail is more troubling. Mining licences have been issued to a Russian firm operating under international sanctions; Burkina Faso’s gold is also widely suspected to be financing Russia’s war in Ukraine and underwriting presidential security deals with Russian security contractors. These arrangements will almost certainly cut the country off from legitimate international financial markets, leaving it with fewer bargaining options and at the mercy of predatory actors whose interests are often at odds with long-term national development. Some leaders understand mining governance requires patient investors, stable regulation and long-term contracts. Furthermore, the government’s cancellation of licences for industrial operators leaves deposits and supply chains vulnerable to illegal extraction and potential exploitation by traders linked to regional terrorism. Unregulated artisanal production, often involving child and slave labour, has increased in Burkina Faso and across the region. The article also refers to the transatlantic slave trade, citing African rulers who played European powers against each other to drive up prices. Even with historical contextualization, few African citizens view the slave trade – an indelible stain on the conscience of humanity – as a moment of negotiating success. This was obviously not a moment of collective agency; rather, it was an earlier form of elite capture, in which narrow interests were advanced at profound human and societal cost. Successful stewards None of which is to say that the 21st-century African state cannot be a successful steward of its mineral resources. For instance, Morocco’s Office Chérifien des Phosphates (the OCP Group) demonstrates how state ownership, long-term planning and transparent corporate governance can provide both national benefit and global competitiveness in the extractive sector. African states should be able to renegotiate mining contracts or update regulatory frameworks; but this must be done in ways that reduce risk, attract patient capital and align with citizens’ interests rather than the security of a narrow elite. African leaders have real choices in how they engage with international demand for resources. And a more nuanced argument is how they can design deals that bring together African, Chinese, Gulf and western capital, expertise and political partners to de-risk projects and anchor them in long-term developmental needs.