Africa is indispensable to global future; Marrakech Declaration adopts African ESG framework

The African mining sector needs a stable and sustainable framework to be financed, and above all for Africa’s mineral resources to bring real added value to local populations, said Moroccan Minister of Energy Transition and Sustainable Development Leila Benali this week, as she proudly launched a new ESG framework, in conjunction with several other African mining ministers, at IMC 2025 in Marrakech. 

“We wanted to establish a framework because, to put it simply, the global financial sector has created ESG frameworks that are not adapted to African realities. So we said to ourselves … we will agree together on what type of framework could help finance, sustain, and most importantly enhance the mining sector in Africa.”

The new ESG framework, ‘made by Africans, for Africans’, coupled with the OTC corridor (Origination, Transit and Certification) initiative, jointly initiated by several African ministers of mining at last year’s IMC in Marrakech, will, Minister Benali said, ensure that any iron ore, lithium, or cobalt that passes through the OTC corridor, originates within the corridor, or is certified within the corridor, can benefit from ESG standards that will allow it to be financed much more sustainably, but above all bring added value to the local population, to Africa’s children, and also to the miners and workers who work day and night so that everyone has access to today’s technology.

As reported by Morocco World News, the message was strong and clear at IWC 2025 this week: Africa is the foundation of the global energy transition, and will refuse to remain undervalued. Africa is not simply rich in minerals, it is indispensable to the world’s future, and it is ready to redefine its place in the global order.

Africa stands at the centre of a unique tension in modern history, said Beali, a collision between the quiet force of geology that form minerals over millions of years of slow, methodical and unalterable processes, and the frantic acceleration of industry and a global economy that no longer moves at human pace, where supply chains evolve now in months, technologies can become obsolete in a year, and global demand for critical minerals rapidly rises faster than geology can replenish. 

“Never before has the world needed strategic minerals as much as it does today,” stated Minister Benali. “Without them, there are no batteries, no electric vehicles, no hydrogen, no data centres, no renewable energy, no modern industry.”

But while the world depends on African minerals, which have gone beyond commodities to become the architecture of global competitiveness and national security, Africa itself only captures fragments of their value. Its geological abundance has not automatically translated into prosperity or power. Africa must rethink not what it possesses, but how it negotiates, transforms, and governs it.

While historically the fragmentation of African nations’ mineral strategies has weakened the continent’s bargaining power, the global context is shifting, and over the past year, noted Benali, there has been unprecedented collaboration among African nations, a sign not only of institutional maturity but of a growing realization that the continent must negotiate its interests collectively.

In a landmark moment at IMC 2025 on Monday, the Marrakech Declaration was issued, representing a historic step toward establishing the first common African framework for ESG dedicated to the mining sector. The framework presents a set of core principles that aim to:

• Facilitate access to sustainable financing for mining and mineral processing projects

• Strengthen fairness and transparency in natural resource management

• Ensure inclusion and accountability at all stages of the value chain

• Support cooperation between African countries and financing institutions

• Produce mineral products with standards that respect people and the environment

The Marrakech Declaration has been adopted as a comprehensive continental reference that will be used to guide mining sector reforms in various African countries, strengthen good governance mechanisms, protect natural resources, and develop more sustainable and effective working methods.

Benali praised the intensive efforts made by the ministers of the mineral sector in Africa throughout this year to establish an African ESG framework. She considered this framework as a common structure aimed at achieving a unified and sustainable vision that places the development of the mining sector at the heart of sustainability.

Africa Legal's Annual GC Forum Extractives takes place on the 11 February 2026 in Cape Town under the theme “Africa’s Critical Core | Minerals, Markets & Global Collaboration”. This event is free for;  

- Mining and energy GCs and in-house legal teams

- Mining and energy professionals in leadership, risk and compliance roles 

- Government relations, policy and regulatory professionals 

- Investors and financiers in the mining and energy sectors 

- NGOs and academia 

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