As UNGA Puts Africa’s Critical Minerals At The Centre Of The Global Development Debate, African Leaders And U.S. Investors Ask: Who Will Finance The Value Chain?

As world leaders gathered in New York for the 81st United Nations General Assembly and the United Nations launched a new mechanism to help resource-rich developing countries capture more value from critical energy-transition minerals, another conversation was taking place just blocks away.

At The St. Regis, African political and economic leaders, investors, mining specialists, development-finance representatives and U.S. capital-markets professionals were confronting the same fundamental question from a different angle: Africa has many of the minerals the global economy needs. But where is the capital to build the industries that will allow Africa to capture the value?

That question defined the Africa Critical Minerals Investor Forum, held on Wednesday, September 23, 2026, on the margins of the 81st UN General Assembly.

The forum, themed “From Mine to Markets: Financing Africa’s Critical Minerals Through U.S. Capital,” brought together African leadership and international finance around an issue that has rapidly moved from a mining-sector conversation to a question of global economic strategy.

The timing was striking.

Earlier that day, at the UN Climate Summit, Secretary-General António Guterres announced the Country Support Mechanism on Critical Energy Transition Minerals, designed to help resource-rich developing countries build sustainable, responsible and resilient mineral value chains and ensure that greater benefits reach the people and nations where those resources originate. The first six partner countries are Guinea, Indonesia, Madagascar, Nigeria, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

The UN has effectively put the question of who benefits from the global critical-minerals boom on the international agenda.

The New York investor forum asked the next question: How does Africa finance the transformation?

Africa’s position in the global critical-minerals economy is difficult to ignore.

The continent supplies approximately 75% of global manganese, 70% of cobalt and nearly 20% of copper, according to the International Energy Agency. Yet Africa captures less than 1% of the value generated from manufacturing clean-energy technologies and their components. That gap is becoming increasingly consequential.

Demand for the minerals underpinning batteries, electricity networks, renewable-energy systems and advanced technologies continues to grow, while global supply chains remain highly concentrated. The IEA reports that the average share of the top refining country across key energy minerals reached approximately 70% in 2025. The question, therefore, is no longer simply whether the world needs Africa’s minerals. It is whether Africa can turn that global dependence into industrial power at home.

That means moving beyond extraction into processing, refining, manufacturing, logistics, energy and technology, and developing African companies capable of competing for capital and markets

globally. It was this gap between resource ownership and value-chain ownership that sat at the heart of the September 23 discussion.

Opening the forum, Muazzam Mairawani, Founder & Group Chairman of MSM Group and Chairman of MSM Frontier Capital Acquisition Corporation, argued that Africa’s challenge is not a lack of investable opportunity. “Africa does not suffer from a shortage of opportunity. Africa suffers from a shortage of capital moving at the speed of opportunity.” His argument went directly to the question now confronting governments and investors: how can capital markets be structured to support projects large enough and long-term enough to transform natural-resource wealth into productive industries?

Through MSM Frontier Capital, Mairawani outlined an ambition to connect African opportunities with global institutional capital, strategic partners and development-finance institutions.

But he cautioned against viewing critical minerals as a standalone opportunity. “Africa’s future will not be built by one sector. It will be built by an industrial ecosystem.” That ecosystem, he argued, must connect mining to energy, manufacturing, agriculture, logistics, infrastructure and global markets. In practical terms, that means asking different questions of the mineral economy. Not simply: How much cobalt can be extracted? But: What can be manufactured because the cobalt is there? Not simply: How much copper can Africa export? But:

How much industrial infrastructure and manufacturing capacity can that copper help create? And not simply: How much foreign capital can Africa attract? But: What ownership, capabilities and long-term value can that capital help build inside Africa?

The coincidence between the UN announcement and the forum was more than a matter of timing. The UN’s own assessment of Africa’s priorities ahead of UNGA 81 highlighted reform of the global financial architecture, including the cost and availability of capital, alongside value addition and industrialisation around critical minerals. UNGA 81 itself is being held under the theme “Restoring trust, managing transformation: A United Nations that delivers for all.” And on September 23, the UN’s new minerals mechanism sought to turn that principle into practical country-level support. The investor forum approached the same transformation from the capital side. The UN is asking how resource-rich countries can capture more value. African governments are asking how they can industrialise. Investors are asking whether the projects, institutions and companies exist to absorb capital at scale. The missing bridge is finance.

The forum brought together senior African political and economic figures, including H.E. Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, President of Somalia; H.E. Dr. Workneh Gebeyehu, Executive Secretary of IGAD; H.E. Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, former President of Nigeria; H.E. Senator Kashim Shettima Mustapha, Vice President of Nigeria; HRH Muhammadu Sanusi II, 16th Emir of Kano and former Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria; Dr. Mansur Muhtar, Chairman of Bank of Industry Nigeria and former Vice President of the Islamic Development Bank; and Dr. Issa Faye, Director General, Global Practices and Partnerships at the Islamic Development Bank.

The programme deliberately moved between the political, institutional and commercial dimensions of the investment challenge. A session on African country risk and the rule of law, featuring Amaka Anu, Director and Practice Head, Africa at Eurasia Group, examined political stability, contract enforceability and governance — the questions investors typically ask before committing capital. The discussion then moved directly into the mechanics of accessing U.S. markets.

Moderated by Crocker Coulson of AUM Advisors, the panel on “Financing the Pathway to U.S. Markets” featured:

• Joe Riggio, Founding Partner, Jett Capital
• Mitch Nussbaum, Co-Chair, Loeb & Loeb LLP
• Patrick A. Sturgeon, Managing Partner, Brookline Capital Markets
• Gracelin Baskaran, Director, Critical Minerals Security Program

The discussion examined transaction structures, due diligence, governance requirements, legal considerations, and the use of U.S. public markets and SPAC structures to finance and consolidate critical-minerals opportunities. The underlying message was clear: Africa does not simply need more capital. It needs more investment-ready opportunities capable of absorbing capital responsibly and converting it into productive capacity.

The global energy transition has created an extraordinary opportunity for resource-rich countries but also a familiar risk. Countries can become indispensable suppliers while remaining marginal participants in the value created from their own resources. That is precisely the outcome the new UN mechanism is seeking to address.

The UN has warned that resource-rich developing countries need sustainable mineral value chains so that the benefits of the energy transition reach countries and communities at the source. The investment question is therefore becoming inseparable from the development question. Who owns the processing plant, the refinery, the industrial park, the energy, the logistics infrastructure? Who develops the technology? Who captures the jobs? Who owns the companies that eventually sell the finished products? And, ultimately: Who captures the value?

For MSM Frontier Capital, this is the opportunity behind the “From Mine to Markets” proposition.

Mairawani’s opening address called for a model in which Africa’s minerals become inputs into African industrialisation rather than simply exports from Africa. He described a future in which gas can power African industries before it is exported, minerals can feed batteries and advanced manufacturing, agriculture can evolve into agribusiness, and ports can become industrial gateways.

“Now we must convert confidence into capital. And capital into industries.”

That proposition also aligns with the broader debate unfolding at UNGA 81. Africa is seeking a stronger voice in global institutions. It is seeking reforms to the international financial architecture. It is demanding greater value from its natural resources. And it is increasingly positioning industrialisation as essential to jobs, energy security and long-term economic sovereignty.

The critical-minerals question sits directly at the intersection of all four.

The UN has put equity in critical-minerals value chains on the global agenda. African governments are increasingly pushing for local processing and industrialisation.

Global economies are seeking more secure and diversified supplies of the minerals required for the energy transition and advanced technologies. Investors are looking for scalable opportunities. The challenge is connecting these four forces. That is where capital markets matter. Africa’s opportunity is not merely to become the world’s mine; it is to become a significant processor, manufacturer, investor, owner, and exporter of higher-value products.

The September 23 forum therefore ended where the bigger global conversation is only beginning. Africa has the minerals. The world has the demand. The financial markets have the capital. What is needed now is the bridge between them. And the success of Africa’s critical-minerals story may ultimately be measured not by how many tonnes leave African soil, but by how much value, industrial capacity and prosperity remain after they do.

As Mairawani put it: “The greatest investment story of the twenty-first century will not simply happen in Africa. It will be led by Africa.”

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