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African governments are moving quickly to curb raw mineral exports, betting that bans and quotas can keep more value onshore. The logic is simple, but execution is not.
Also in today’s edition: Afreximbank parts ways with Fitch as some have high hopes for an Africa-focused credit ratings agency.
Africa is cracking down on critical mineral exports — and doing it fast. From lithium and cobalt to chrome and copper, governments are rolling out bans, quotas, and tariffs to stop shipping precious raw material abroad and start keeping more value at home.
In 2025 alone, Zimbabwe curbed raw lithium exports, Malawi paused all unprocessed mineral exports, Ghana shut mining out of forest reserves, and the Democratic Republic of Congo moved to rein in cobalt exports.
Exporting raw materials leaves countries exposed to price swings while foreign firms cash in. But making the leap from enacting bans to building processing facilities is where it gets messy. Without coordination among countries with similar mineral deposits, critics say, exporters can just shop around for favorable terms, writes my colleague Jesse Chase-Lubitz.
“Minerals cross borders,” warns Kudakwashe Manjonjo, a just transition adviser at Power Shift Africa. “You create arbitrage opportunities, and that feeds into corruption.”
Still, others see the bans as a rare pressure point. “For countries with limited fiscal space and weak bargaining power, these bans are a way to force a conversation with mining companies,” says Thomas Scurfield, senior economic analyst for Africa at the Natural Resource Governance Institute. “But they only work if they’re part of a broader strategy.”
Then there’s the energy problem. Processing minerals is power-hungry, and few countries can compete with China’s scale or electricity prices. “Without cheap, reliable energy, these bans risk stalling production rather than creating new industry,” says W. Gyude Moore, a senior policy fellow at the Energy for Growth Hub and former Liberian minister of public works.
Talk of an OPEC-style minerals cartel keeps popping up — and just as quickly runs into reality. “People talk about it, but I don’t think they fully appreciate how hard it would be,” Manjonjo says.
For now, the bans are a shot across the bow. Turning that signal into jobs and industry will take far more than simply stopping exports.
Read: Inside Africa’s high stakes push for mineral sovereignty (Pro)
See also: How to turn the critical minerals boom into a development win
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Liberia’s foreign affairs minister has a message for donors: The aid model is dead, and her country isn't waiting around for its resurrection.
Sara Beysolow Nyanti tells Devex President and Editor-in-Chief Raj Kumar that Liberia is pivoting to economic diplomacy, and is banking on its critical minerals and carbon sinks to generate the jobs that aid struggled to deliver. The shift was on display at Davos, where Liberia held its first investment-focused event at the 2026 World Economic Forum. “Countries won't be prosperous depending on aid," she says.
Washington’s abrupt USAID cuts hit hard across Africa, but Nyanti isn’t surprised. Nearly three decades across United Nations peacekeeping operations, humanitarian coordination, and global health convinced her that aid wasn't the model to develop countries.
Now she’s reviewing mineral agreements “where Liberians aren't getting fair share” as part of the country’s current broader economic push. The strategy includes government health investments and public-private partnerships alongside job creation. Oh, and Liberia just signed a $124 million global health compact with the United States — which Nyanti frames thusly: “If we create jobs and people have access to health care, they’ll pay for their health care.”
Since taking the helm of the Saudi Fund for Development in 2021, Sultan Abdulrahman Al-Marshad has quietly turned one of the Gulf’s most powerful donor institutions into a more strategic, globally visible player — which is why he made our list of the top 50 most powerful people shaping global development in 2026. SFD has now backed $20 billion across more than 100 countries — from small island states to Serbia — spanning everything from health and infrastructure to energy and mining, including renewables that sit awkwardly alongside Saudi Arabia’s oil wealth.
His tenure has included a major internal overhaul and a headline-grabbing deal with FIFA to finance soccer infrastructure abroad — a move that fits neatly with the kingdom’s sports push, and the growing scrutiny of it.
Read more: Devex Power 50
📍 This is only a sampling. For the rest of the week, we will continue to highlight a name you need to remember — someone who is shaping this historic new era of global development.
The African Export-Import Bank, or Afreximbank, and credit ratings agency Fitch have been in a months-long standoff over the credit rating that the latter gave the former. The ending wasn’t a happy one: Afreximbank severed ties with Fitch, after which the ratings agency downgraded the bank to junk status.
The ugly breakup exposes a deeper fault line in global finance: What exactly counts as a multilateral development bank, and what protections come with that status?
At the heart of the dispute, my colleague Ayenat Mersie writes, is a concept known as preferred creditor status. In simple terms, MDBs are typically treated as senior creditors, meaning their loans are expected to be repaid even when countries restructure their debt. That status is central to how MDBs operate, how they raise capital, and how investors assess their risk.
Afreximbank says it falls squarely into the preferred category. Fitch says otherwise, citing Ghana’s default on its sovereign debt in 2022, which prompted questions about how the country’s roughly $750 million in obligations to Afreximbank would be treated. Late last year, Ghana and Afreximbank reached an agreement on the debt, but that didn’t quell the debate, which raises broader questions over how ratings agencies assess risk — and whether they inflate it for Africa.
This has culminated in a push to create an African credit rating agency, AfCRA, which is expected to begin operations soon. Supporters say the goal is not to replace the major agencies, but to introduce a counterweight — one that better reflects African risks and realities.
“This is a warning sign to the ratings agencies that they need to better understand African perspectives, be more transparent about their methodologies, and rethink how they assess African banks and sovereigns,” says Hannah Ryder of Development Reimagined. “The big three [credit rating agencies] do need to sit up and pay attention.”
Read: Afreximbank cuts ties with Fitch, exposing a fault line in global finance (Pro)
After last year’s funding cuts and layoffs, many development professionals are heading into 2026 still hunting for work — and wondering why solid applications aren’t getting callbacks, writes Emma Smith for Devex.
Career coach Spencer Campbell’s advice: Don’t take it personally. The sector’s upheaval, he said, mirrors the hiring freezes seen during COVID-19 and the 2008 financial crisis. At a recent Devex digital event, Campbell and fellow career coach Dan Freehling urged job seekers to slow down and get more strategic. There’s no shortcut, Freehling said, calling mass applications “a losing strategy.” Instead, they recommend approaching the search like a “matchmaker” — focusing on where your skills are genuinely valued, not just where you want to work.
“The job market is composed of all these super-micro, specific niches,” Campbell said, and networking should be about figuring out where you truly fit.
On résumés, Campbell pushed back on fears of AI gatekeepers, saying candidates should focus on materials built for humans — especially as recruiters sift through floods of low-effort applications. And when it comes to rejection, the key signal isn’t feedback emails, but patterns. “Even if you’re winning [and] you’re on track, you’re going to get a lot of noes,” Campbell said. When interviews start coming, Freehling’s advice is simple: “Pour gasoline on that.”
Watch: How to run a smarter job search in 2026 (Career)
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Two senior members of Human Rights Watch’s Israel-Palestine team have resigned, saying the organization stalled a report that argued Israel’s denial of Palestinian refugees’ right of return amounts to a crime against humanity, a claim HRW says needs further review. [New York Times]
Illinois and New York City have joined a World Health Organization outbreak response network, pushing back against U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw from the global health body. [The Guardian]
The United Nations has warned that Cuba could face a humanitarian collapse as the U.S. moves to block oil supplies to the island and threatens tariffs on countries that would help the Caribbean nation. [Al Jazeera]
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