African lender eyes iron and uranium as mineral race intensifies
CAPE TOWN — The Africa Finance Corporation is considering investments in iron ore and uranium, extending its ambitions in a minerals industry increasingly shaped by rivalry among the United States, China and other major powers.
Franklin Edochie, the Lagos-based institution’s deputy director and head of mining and metals, said the AFC is working toward financing new projects and hopes to announce investments in the next six to twelve months. No such iron or uranium financing deal was announced at the Cape Town mining conference.
The AFC already has exposure to gold, bauxite, copper and manganese projects. Edochie argued that the combined iron ore output of Guinea, Liberia, Mauritania and Sierra Leone could, within a decade, rival that of the world’s three largest producers by volume. The projection is an ambition, not a realized production figure.
Financial control is only one part of the equation. African governments and workers face the deeper question of whether extraction will generate domestic processing, skilled employment, tax revenue and reliable infrastructure—or reproduce an export model in which the greatest value is captured elsewhere.
The AFC is also leading development of the U.S.-backed Lobito Corridor, intended to connect copper and cobalt mines in Zambia and the Democratic Republic of Congo to Angola’s Atlantic coast by rail. Supporters see opportunities for transport investment; critics of raw-material dependence will ask who ultimately benefits.
New financing could strengthen African industrial autonomy if local communities, public institutions and workers shape the terms. Without those conditions, rising international interest in the continent’s minerals does not automatically mean rising local prosperity.
Documentary photo credit: Flucco, RUSAL bauxite port in Guinea, May 2022. CC BY-SA 4.0. Illustrative archival mining infrastructure.
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