President John Dramani Mahama has warned that Africa will not allow its natural resources to become the centre of a new scramble, calling for greater African control over the extraction, processing and trade of critical minerals.
Addressing the 81st Session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York on Thursday, September 24, 2026, the president said the rising global demand for critical minerals must not lead to a repeat of the exploitation associated with the colonial era.
“Critical minerals must not replicate colonial-era exploitation,” he said.
President Mahama stressed that Africa’s mineral wealth must create greater economic benefits for countries on the continent and their people instead of leaving Africa mainly as a supplier of raw materials to other economies.
He called for a shift from simply extracting and exporting minerals to processing them within Africa. According to him, developing local processing capacity would allow African countries to retain more of the value generated from their resources and support wider economic development.
The President said Africa was ready to work with the rest of the world, but such cooperation must be based on partnership and mutual benefit. He maintained that African countries should have a greater say in how their resources are developed and how the resulting benefits are shared.
He also called for reforms to the global financial system to give African countries fairer opportunities to finance development and strengthen their economies.
