Governments around the world are increasingly forging partnerships focused on critical mineral supplies
As governments look to transition away from fossil fuels and accelerate the deployment of clean energy, policy makers are dedicating more attention to securing supplies of critical minerals.
Materials such as copper, lithium, nickel, cobalt and rare earth elements are essential to components in many fast-growing clean energy technologies, such as wind turbines and electric vehicles. As demand for them grows, government-to-government partnerships focused on mineral supply are becoming an increasingly popular policy tool, helping establish frameworks of cooperation between producing and consuming countries. However, many of these arrangements are described in broad language without supporting details. By making partnerships more concrete and transparent, governments could send an important signal about how they will ensure that new mining projects are developed responsibly.
Strategic partnerships on critical minerals are often struck between the government of a major consumer market and that of a major critical mineral producing country - such as those between the European Union and the Democratic Republic of Congo and between the United Kingdom and Zambia. There have also been a growing number of partnership announcements between consuming countries, such as the agreement between the United States and Japan.
Thus far, these deals have typically been motivated by economic and national security concerns and ostensibly lay the groundwork for future collaboration or investment incentives. They are rarely binding, but often reference high-level intentions to collaborate on:
- Identifying projects to prioritise for financing.
- Supporting open, competitive markets.
- Building capacity and transferring knowledge through technical assistance programmes.
- Facilitating cooperation on research, development and innovation.
- Developing domestic processing capacity to ensure producing countries can add value to raw materials before they are exported.
Many of these partnership agreements also incorporate or reference a commitment to responsibly and sustainably manage supply chains. Delivering on this promise would require advancing the sustainable development ambitions of low- and middle-income producer countries and mitigating the risk of environmental, social and governance failures, which can cause harm and ultimately lead to supply disruptions. By prioritising transparency, incorporating criteria that require sustainable and responsible practices, and ensuring that affected communities and stakeholders are systematically consulted when negotiating and implementing these partnerships, countries can work together to strengthen secure critical mineral supply chains in a cooperative and responsible manner.
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