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The world is entering an unprecedented boom in critical minerals.
This creates major opportunities for investment, jobs and public revenues, as well as for building new capabilities and industries, advancing cleaner production and developing circular business models.
Yet the risks of the critical minerals boom are real and already playing out: extraction, processing and key technologies remain concentrated in a handful of countries and firms, leaving others dependent and exposed and intensifying geopolitical rivalry. Mineral markets face sharp price swings and cycles of investment and retreat, while resource wealth can continue to fuel capture, corruption and violence. These pressures are compounded by deepening environmental and socio-economic crises.
A development perspective, for both countries that hold these resources and those that need them, is urgently required.
Putting this perspective into practice requires better knowledge, rapid response, coordination and tailored approaches. Our work centres on how to build lasting capability across the critical minerals economy, spanning the soft and the hard, the technical and the institutional, the firm level and the state level.
Led by Anabel Marín, Wei Shen and Mick Moore, the Critical Minerals and Development Initiative draws on IDS’s long-standing experience across industrial policy, global value chains, climate, taxation, conflict and inclusion, applied to critical minerals across Africa, Asia and Latin America.
We work with partners to build capabilities and strengthen firms and suppliers, enabling producing and mineral-dependent countries to develop mutually beneficial strategies for investment and value creation across more resilient global supply chains.
We work with governments, firms and civil society to strengthen the legitimacy of resource-based industrial strategies by addressing social and environmental conflicts and improving the distribution of costs and benefits across countries and communities.
We collaborate with partners to build shared knowledge and strengthen cooperation between producing and mineral-dependent countries around common challenges, from investment and supply security to environmental standards and the distribution of value across global mineral chains.
Knowledge and coordination are essential to creating and distributing value, sustaining investment, building resilient supply chains and managing resources without shifting social and environmental costs onto communities.
Our work is carried out with, and supported by, partners and funders including UNCTAD, the Inter-American Development Bank, the Asian Development Bank and the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, among others.
This project aims to give a justice dimension to the concept of ‘inclusive trade policy’ by uncovering a usually hidden link between trade, social and environmental conflicts and justice for...
The global race to secure critical minerals is accelerating. Demand for lithium, cobalt, copper and rare earths is projected to increase dramatically - in some cases by four times or more by 2040....
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