Boubacar Bocoum: The Geopolitics of Critical Minerals

0:00:00.6 Susan Page: Okay. Good afternoon everyone. It's lovely to see you all and we're really excited about this presentation. I'm super happy that we were able to bring Boubacar here, Mr. Bocoum. So I want to first of all thank also the Africa Studies Center which is co-sponsoring this event today and it is being live streamed as well. And for the questions, we also have QR codes on the tables at the end. So if you have questions, please do whatever you're supposed to do with barcodes.

0:00:41.3 SP: As the global demand for critical minerals surges, competition over these essential resources has intensified, reshaping international relations and economic strategies. The geopolitics of critical minerals, balancing security, sustainability and shared growth will explore the complex dynamics of resource control, environmental and social responsibility and geopolitical power struggles. With countries like Ukraine, Chile and the Democratic Republic of Congo, amongst others, at the center of these tensions, nations must navigate the challenges of securing supply chains while ensuring responsible mineral management which supports the economic development of host countries. This discussion will examine how global powers and local governments balance economic ambitions, security improvement imperatives and sustainability goals.

0:01:39.8 SP: So we are thrilled that you have joined us today. I forgot to mention who I am, but I forget that people probably don't all know who I am because I don't know all the faces in the room. I'm Susan Page. I'm a professor of practice at U of M's Ford School and a professor from practice at the law school. I'm also the director of the Weiser Diplomacy Center. And it is my pleasure to introduce to you Boubacar Bocoum. He is the lead mining specialist at the World Bank. He holds a master's degree in mining engineering and economics from the USSR, when it was still called the USSR and an MBA from Montreal. With over 30 years of experience in both public and private mining sectors, he leads the World Bank operations focused on promoting investments, governance, institutional strengthening and facilitating dialogue between governments, the private sector and civil society.

0:02:41.4 SP: He has overseen analytical work in areas such as mining community development, infrastructure, mining tax administration, mine closure and skills development. Prior to joining the World Bank, Mr. Boubacar worked in the private sector, managing all cycles of mining operations and mining project finance. So we will first have a presentation by Mr. Bocoum and then we will have a little chat and open it up to questions. So without further ado, Mr. Bocoum, thank you so much.

[applause]

0:03:26.1 Boubacar Bocoum: Thank you, and good afternoon everybody. It is a real pleasure and an honor actually to be here and exchanging with you. And let me start with really appreciating and thanking the Ford School as well as the Weiser Diplomatic Center for this opportunity to exchange with all of you and share a few thoughts, and I'm sure hearing a few from you and on a topic that is really at the center of many, many, many global discussions, the critical minerals. So maybe just to start with, technology and climate change driven decarbonization imperatives for industries, for power generation, for transport, to name a few, require actually much more minerals than currently available globally.

0:04:42.5 BB: Electrical vehicles, renewable energy, whether this is wind generation or power generation, are actually much more mineral intensive than their fossil fuel counterpart. And they require actually, increased production of many of the minerals that are needed. And you're talking roughly about more or less 17 minerals that are needed for these industries. And for some of them, because of this demand, multiple fold increase of production is required. All of that at a time when the exploration and the development of mines is actually taking more time than was the case in previous decades.

0:05:37.9 BB: All of that means that for minerals like lithium, cobalt and rare earths, there is actually a gap between demand and supply, which essentially with a context means that innovation is needed both for the extraction of the minerals, but also recycling is actually necessary to meet the demand of the industries of a low carbon economy. Of course, all of that needs to be done within environmentally sustainable approaches.

0:06:14.9 BB: So what are we talking about in terms of gaps? This is a graph here from Boston Consulting Group which is showing the forecasted demand in 2035 compared to 2021. And essentially for a set of critical minerals, and what you see in blue is the gap or the increase in demand between those two years. And for all of them you see in orange, like the gap, essentially what is being said here is that more or less 20% of the critical minerals needed by 2035 are yet to be found. And that really means that more work needs to be done. In terms of exploring for minerals, exploration is by definition challenging. It's a risky business and it increasingly requires advanced technologies. And according to S&P for the 136 mines that were developed between 2000 and 2023, so the past 23 years, exploration only takes over close to 12 years.

0:07:38.6 BB: And you have to add to that the development phase to get to a mine actually being operating. Some of the challenges are linked to permitting, especially permitting of environmental and social dimensions. So complex processes that are actually impacting the schedule of the mining sector. And another really important aspect to that lead time has to do with social license to operate. Getting communities to be on board is crucial and had been a source of time taken for project development.

0:08:25.0 BB: So we're all talking about critical minerals. So it's important to sort of look a little bit into the concentration of production, processing and then ownership. So essentially, if you take the three largest producers of those minerals, you'd find that in all of the cases, they are producing 50 to over 80% of the minerals. For copper, you're talking about Peru, Chile and DRC. For lithium, Australia, Chile and China. For nickel, Indonesia, Philippines and New Caledonia. Cobalt is pretty much a DRC story, and then natural graphite, China, as well as rare earths. So that's in terms of the production. Now, if you look at the processing, I mean, the concentration is even bigger. You're really talking much more about a China story here, which is what you see in red.

0:09:31.5 BB: And then Chile and Indonesia playing significant roles in the processing of lithium and nickel, respectively. Now, really what is interesting is to look at ownership. Ownership viewed here from the perspective of where the head office of the mining companies are located, you see quite a different picture. And you see for copper and lithium, actually Western companies, companies based in US, in Europe and in Australia, being significant owners for copper and lithium and then nickel and cobalt, China playing quite a significant role, but still Europe being quite present.

0:10:21.0 BB: So really, to summarize the geography is one story of concentration. The processing is an even bigger story of concentration. But then when you look at like China, that is player in both the cases and you look at the ownership, you see a different sort of picture and the game and why these minerals are qualified as critical for many, many countries.

0:10:57.5 BB: Now, what is the problem or what is the potential constraint with the concentration? Concentration means risks for global supplies. And those risks may be linked to geopolitics. They may be simply linked to production. If in one of the three countries, for technical, natural hazards or conflict reasons, production is constrained, then you have significant vulnerabilities for many economies.

0:11:33.3 BB: And given that, and given the importance of the minerals, over the past 11 years, according to the OECD, 53 countries instituted some form of export restrictions in the form of either a ban of export or higher export tariffs. And these export controls really have significant impact, can disrupt marketability, can impact price volatilities, security and technological vulnerabilities of many countries, which necessitate shifts in strategies and strategies indeed, countries have put in place alliances to try to build resiliency in the access of minerals and building collaboration and shared interests. Really what we're talking here is between the supply chain vulnerabilities and the impact on export controls, you have possibilities of impacting global relations between countries, but also trade relations.

0:12:48.1 BB: And then because of that, you see adaptation strategies and increasingly the use of resource diplomacy to get access to those resources. So if you look at the strategies, broadly speaking, one can identify two trends. One is partnerships and collaboration to enhance access to resources, to diversify supply chains, promote economic stability, and increasingly, really talking about sustainable development in mineral rich countries on one side. On the other side, you see efforts in terms of innovation, both for the processes of extracting the minerals, but also for reducing the material and metal needed in goods that are produced based on those minerals. All of that in an effort to support sustainability and resource efficiencies.

0:13:50.9 BB: So what are we talking about when we talk about critical minerals? What is critical for country A is not necessarily critical for country B. So it really depends on the economics, the technology, the security needs, what mineral is extracted where, by which partner. The US has a list that is made up of 50 minerals. EU and Japan that we have in that slide have different minerals and at times, similar. Essentially, the three countries and block have 21 minerals that are identical. And it's interesting, if you step back and look at these minerals, you wouldn't see things like gold, like, for a country like even New Zealand, gold is actually a critical mineral.

0:14:50.9 BB: And if you are following the mining sector, you would know that precious minerals and metals, gold and diamond, are actually a significant driver of the collaboration between some countries and some security forces or mercenaries, depending on how you put it. So what is really critical for one country is not critical for a different country. And there are all sorts of things happening, whether you are a Japan that is not producing minerals or you are a US where you have actually a lot of mines and good potential, or whether you are EU, so your geography and so on actually really matter.

0:15:42.2 BB: So criticality is pretty much a dependent variable for countries. So the partnerships that had been put in place basically tend to have three dimensions. A strategic resource diversification, where collaboration is showed both on initiatives to get access to resources, be it on financial terms, be it on technology, be it on other dimensions. The western democracies are significantly insisting on ESG, the Environmental, Social and Governance standards to make sure that this larger demand of minerals is not going to be realized at the expense of lower Environmental, Social and Governance standards. And all of that is largely driven by those three countries. We have here by a goal to counterbalance what is called in some literature, the strategic competitors dominance. You would know who that strategic competitor is.

0:17:03.1 BB: So the aim is to really enable secure access to essential resources amidst rising global competition. So what is the implication of that for many developing countries? Well, to start with, a lot of those developing countries are themselves getting urbanized, getting industrialized, which means that their own demand for minerals is increasing, driven both by infrastructure development, but also but the development of technological needs that are essential for their economic growth.

0:17:42.3 BB: In terms of geopolitics that gives developing countries that are mineral rich a really important position to influence global mineral supply chains and become part of it, and to utilize this position to actually develop partnerships to reach the developmental goals that they may have, be it becoming part of the supply chains or other goals. All in all, it really enhances their bargaining power in the global marketplace. It is an opportunity for those countries to leverage minerals for inclusive development. And this is really important for a lot of them, which tend to host a lot of the poorest people in the world. So balancing extraction with environmental sustainability and good responsible practices can actually improve the investment attractiveness of those countries.

0:18:52.0 BB: So let's take here the example of just two countries and taking here copper as an example. Chile is one of those countries with largest producer of copper. And you have here some of the numbers. So you can see the impact of the increase in mining value between 2023 and 2033, significant increase. So it means that a sector that is already quite important for the country's economy in terms of GDP, directly or indirectly, or in terms of export, the sector playing an even more important role potentially going forward.

0:19:37.1 BB: Chile has a lot of things going for it. It is the leading producer of Copper, the second producer of lithium. It has strong pipeline of projects, $69 billion, including 23, almost 24 billion to be invested by 2026 in brown fields and 1 billion in green fields. And this is really important because when you look at many places and you wonder where that concentration that we see is likely to evolve or what is happening since critical minerals have taken prominence, we tend to see actually much more production coming from the same places, I.e, the concentration is not necessarily, for the time being, evolving. And that is not necessarily only a factor of geology, but it's a factor of elite time that we talked about.

0:20:38.5 BB: So Chile has a relatively strong regulatory system and quite some potential for renewables. But against that background, it has aging mines with decreasing ore grades, which is really important for decarbonization permitting challenges, especially on the social front, and community acceptance being an area where more work needs to be done. Looking at the ownership, most of the mines in Chile are actually owned by either the government of Chile or Western companies.

0:21:21.9 BB: Chile has an ambition to become part of the mineral value chain and it has partnerships with Europe, with the USA, with Korea and et cetera. Now, they made some reforms recently to introduce what you see here, royalties and taxes. And this is part of the sort of different outlook between the industrialized countries and some of the developing countries which really see the critical minerals as an opportunity to face up to the developmental challenges. So when they get their policies evolving, you can hear on the other side people talking about resource nationalism. So various perspectives on the opportunity that is at hand.

0:22:17.6 BB: Chile has put together a lithium strategy. Essentially, they want to become a significant player in lithium, not only in terms of extraction, but actually in terms of ownership. So some policies have been put in place and you see that they want to partner with the private sector, pretty much have sustainability in mind and ambition to use the revenues that are going to be generated for social programs and infrastructure development in areas that are being mined. Have quite some goals in terms of use of fresh water. And you would understand that a lot of the copper is actually being mined in areas where water is a problem. It's a desert in some places where it hadn't rained for like 500 years.

0:23:10.9 BB: So DRC is another interesting example. Based on statistics that the government had released literally a few weeks ago, they produced close to 3.2 million tons of copper, which unless Peru has had significant production increase, it makes DRC actually the second global producer of copper. In addition to being a first producer of cobalt, DRC is really endowed with all sorts of minerals, including gold, diamonds and the three Ts, tin, tungsten and tantalum. Mining sector really important for the country's GDP. It's the first source of domestic revenues. It's virtually all of the export in the country. And then in DRC, depending on statistics you look at, artisanal and small scale miners involved in extraction of copper and cobalt are estimated between 2 and 12.5 million people, which essentially means that mining and ASM is a significant livelihood for many, many people.

0:24:35.6 BB: What is going on and working for DRC in terms of its mineral endowment is significantly higher grade, comparatively speaking, when you're talking about an average grade of copper of 0.8% in the world, in DRC you're talking about 2 to 3%. And for an industry that wants to decarbonize in terms of processing, this is really, really significant difference and advantage that DRC has. They have extensive untapped mineral potential. In fact, one number that they put out there is $24 trillion in the grounds of DRC. They are involved in EITI. Of course, if you talk about DRC and hydro potential, I mean, it's huge, just the INGA, if it is realized, is supposed to provide enough power to actually power the whole of Africa with clean energy.

0:25:45.3 BB: In terms of things that DRC is working on and perhaps needs to work on more is, artisanal mining, which has serious ESG challenges, including child and forced labor, health risks for communities. You have Eastern Congo situation with conflict minerals and humanitarian crisis around that part of the country. A country that is big and really challenging in terms of infrastructure and contracts that are being reviewed. Perhaps talking about DRC, it is interesting to talk about mining against. So they had this Sicomine, which was a deal between the government of DRC and a set of Chinese companies whereby Chinese were going to access to minerals against infrastructure building worth $3 billion.

0:26:53.6 BB: To cut a long story short, things didn't necessarily go the way the government was anticipating. And some assessments put numbers that you see here saying that the companies made $10 billion profit and the infrastructure that was effectively built is less than $900 million. All in all, the government has renegotiated last year the deal, the terms, some of the terms that you see here, higher infrastructure spending, a cap on the time to repay and a provision to renegotiate the joint venture partnership, which currently is 68% for the Chinese company and the balance for the government.

0:27:44.0 BB: DRC has done a really good job together with Zambia in coming together the two countries to put an initiative to develop battery precursors. And this is really important because, to succeed sustainable production of minerals and metals for the low carbon economy, essentially no single country has it all. It takes cooperation. And while a lot of countries talk about cooperation in actual facts, countries tend to want to develop within their own border facilities. So DRC and Zambia are certainly pioneers in the African context in terms of coming together.

0:28:33.7 BB: You may have heard a lot about the Lobito corridor. And you see here, the situation in 1, 2 and 3. Essentially, 1, is the existing rail lines that are being significantly underutilized and that is receiving funding and has started actually shipping some minerals from DRC through Angola to clients. And number two, is the ambition of the US, the EU, the African Development bank, the African Finance Corporation, just to name a few interested parties, in building a new rail line of 800 kilometres to join Zambia to the existing line. And all of that is important in terms of reducing the transit time. It now takes up to 50 days for copper Cobalt produced in that part of the world to reach clients. With Lobito, it actually will take two weeks for copper and cobalt from DRC to reach the US for example.

0:29:55.6 BB: So a lot of pledges have been made, including up to 4 billion by the US and construction is supposed to be starting. This is one of the reasons that former President Biden went to Angola in December of last year. What is interesting is that on the eastern side of Lobito number three is an existing rail line called the Tazara Railway that actually is functioning and is a subject of an agreement between the government of China and Tanzania essentially to upgrade it.

0:30:40.0 BB: And $1 billion had been pledged to upgrade this existing line. So talking about competition, I mean, you just look at that map, here you are, it's very, very concrete that parties are looking for the same thing. But even in terms of what potential wood are we going into, in terms of two approaches and two parts looking for the same mineral within the same countries, it's quite an example and I guess for a country like DRC and Zambia, and I forgot to mention that unlike the case in Chile, in DRC, the Chinese companies are actually the largest owners of the cobalt and copper mines that are there.

0:31:44.2 BB: So of course DRC, as it can be seen here, wants to be part of the value chain. And DRC, of course, want to use its minerals for its economic development. So all of that to say that you have various players, various ambitions, some of them quite closely aligned, some of them needing some work from partners for it to happen. So in terms of environment, what this means, this being the increase in mineral demand and very likely mineral production, is that it really has impact.

0:32:30.6 BB: Whether you're looking at it from the perspective of land use, whether you're looking at it from the perspective of carbon emissions or water use. If you compare the fossil fuel production and impact to the critical minerals needed for the low carbon energy, the impact are significantly less. That being said, that's when you look at it globally speaking. However, if you look at it locally, at times, the impact can be really significant. And that's where looking at some of the places where copper is being mined in Chile, for example, I mean, it's places where water is very scarce. And this is not only the case in Chile, you can see in Limpopo, here in China and in other part of the world. So local impact can be significant and need to be managed.

0:33:39.9 BB: All in all, really, there is a need to enhance ESG throughout the mineral value chain. And looking at it from the perspective of the developing countries, establishing balance agreement is really, really important. If it's not balanced, it tends not to be durable and quite subject to political changes and instability of the terms. So signing good agreements is one thing. Driving compliance of implementation of agreements is a different thing. And from the perspective of developing countries, mining is a source of revenue for many, many, many countries and actually a source of domestic revenues. And making sure that taxes are paid to the tune that they are due so that those countries can face up to their developmental challenges is key.

0:34:47.6 BB: Sustainable resource management, implementing practices that minimize environmental impact while maximizing resource efficiency is essential. I can tell you from a practice that a lot of countries have, by now, managed to put in place the policies that are required. A good job had been done by many professionals in making that happen. But there is a significant gap between policies and implementation for many, many reasons. So having the good framework is a good start, but it needs to be complemented with good capacities to implement, monitor, control and manage as necessary.

0:35:37.3 BB: Community engagement. Very, very important. Building strong partnerships that enhances social responsibilities and fosters trust is quite important. And I must say that there are quite a lot of challenges, for many reasons on that front, but something really that needs to receive more attention from all stakeholders to make sure that going forward, the situation is better than what it is now.

0:36:12.8 BB: Transparency, governance is really key. And transparency and governance, going back to the first point of agreement, I'm sure we all heard a lot about all sorts of initiatives, all sorts of partnerships, but if you try to actually find out in concrete ways what is the terms that are being negotiated between the parties, it's very, very much not easy to find it, which leaves room for speculation and also room for potential challenges to those initiatives and partnerships by factors like policy changes. Coming back to the question of community partnerships, building trust through engagement is really important.

0:37:07.4 BB: And engagements are supposed to happen from the beginning of exploration, through development operations, all the way to mine closure, to make sure that communities are aware of what is happening and are engaged. And I must say, engaging is important, but engaging the right way is equally, sometimes even more important because at times various parties and it could be exploration companies that by definition want to sell a good story. I have a good mind coming in and saying to communities like, everything is going to be changing. And of course, communities listen to that very carefully.

0:37:57.6 BB: And when a mine comes and things don't change materially, you have an issue. At times it is a gap between expectations that had at times been built by some stakeholders that cannot be met anyways. But the issue with it is that then you have a community whose expectations are virtually not attainable and then you have issues to manage during the life of a project.

0:38:27.9 BB: Incorporating local knowledge on the ongoing dialogue fosters trust and enable companies to address concerns and enhance operational stability. But the third dimension which is really important is the long term economic benefits. So we're not talking here about the mitigation of the environmental and social impact, but we are really talking above and beyond that. What is it that needs to be put in place so that communities benefit from the extraction of the minerals, that they have an economy and jobs that are non-mining jobs and to make sure that really good seeds are put in place for sustainability of the impact.

0:39:24.9 BB: So all in all, the proposal here is to think through six actions for sustainable impact. The first one is to increase the mineral supplies which really needs essentially to have an enabling environment in terms of legal regulatory and institutional framework that are conducive for investments.

0:39:54.8 BB: And one thing that is quite important here, actually, globally including in the US is that there is a lot of exploration data out there, but that is not digitized and that is not in the format that is required to use the second point, technology innovation to speed up the discovery of new mines. And in fact KoBold, which is a US company that is more of an IT company than a mining company, is working in Zambia and found quite a big deposit there. Listening to them, they actually said that they spent much more time in putting together the data, the existing data in digital format and in a manner that made them use advanced technologies to actually delineate a significant copper deposit that is quite below underground.

0:41:02.6 BB: And since it is, sorry, exploration is really risky, it is important to put in place the appropriate incentives to drive it. So in terms of technology and innovation, mining requires increasingly advanced technologies such as automation and AI and using those can significantly reduce environmental impact while enhancing operation and safety efficiency for metal production. Infrastructure is really important and one of the things to think through in terms of infrastructure development is for many developing countries especially how to use infrastructure be IT transport and I'll get to energy later, how to use mining as an anchor for this capital intensive endeavors and then how to make it multi access, I.e, this is not just for mining but it is for many sectors.

0:42:14.3 BB: So one of the things that is not happening globally is really segmentation where when people think infrastructure for general cargo think one way and think mining think a different way. It is pretty much useful to bring it together and to have a comprehensive approach while improving countries capabilities, collaboration and cross border. And this is what I was talking about earlier in terms of DRC and Zambia coming together. And to some extent, the minerals partnership that the US had put together is really about collaboration between the US and some of its partners.

0:43:02.0 BB: So collaboration within countries and between countries is quite key. And in this particular case, enabling cross border trade for those countries that want to be significant parts of value chains is very much important. And infrastructure is key because even in developed countries, infrastructure continues to be needed. And you know what happened here just a few days ago, Germany has come up with lots of billions of dollars for building infrastructure and all these developing countries are looking for the same infrastructure. So really leveraging minerals for it is important.

0:43:55.2 BB: And leveraging mining decarbonization for clean energy development is really important. In a lot of places, Western companies especially are developing solar plants. And so the question is, how do you make sure that these solar plants are connecting also communities for access to that power and how do you make that solar plant to be connected to the general grid? And thinking even in terms of sustainability closure, just transition from mining operations to non mining life going forward, there is quite a bit of work to be done here to make sure that these assets are put in place in a way that benefit communities in the long run.

0:44:49.4 BB: ESG compliance is quite important and that's what I was talking about earlier. The framework is important, but implementation is important also. And ESG from some part of the world are viewed just from good environmental and social standards and the revenues and equity is important for many governments. So it's really a whole that needs to be looked at from that same perspective and community centric approaches we talked about a little bit earlier. Social license to operate and contributing to local development, creating jobs, whether it's mining or non-mining is really some of the things to be done.

0:45:45.8 BB: So those are some of the six elements that are really important if one is thinking about sustainability and doing things differently in a way that hopefully will allow all parties or all key stakeholders to be in a win-win situation as compared to what we have pretty much now where some parties are winning and some other parties not necessary. I thank you.

[applause]

0:46:25.6 SP: Thank you so much. We're just gonna move the...

0:46:32.5 BB: Okay.

0:46:41.1 SP: So thank you very much, Mr. Bocoum. Lots and lots of questions. This was a very rich presentation and I know we've got some real experts in the room. So I am only going to ask a couple of questions to allow as much time as possible for our audience. So let me start with the first question which is about ESG. Even though we all want ESG and some governments perhaps are more inclined to have Environmental, Social and Governance standards, but we've been talking a lot in a lot of countries, these licensing requirements, which requires feasibility studies and environmental impact studies. Again, we all value that, or many of us value that, but how much does that perhaps impede innovation and the licensing, the speed with which things can be accomplished?

0:47:52.6 BB: Right. ESG, or the Environmental and Social Standards, are really entities that are well known and part of the legal and regulatory framework for a lot of companies. So a lot of the time complying with ESGs should not be an issue. Where there had been issues tend to be really the engagement with communities and at times, the varying level of understanding what is the role and the responsibilities in terms of engagement with communities or in terms of environmental dimensions of extraction.

0:48:46.0 BB: So the question that is out there in practical terms is one of varying ESG standards. Different countries have different standards. And in fact, the UN tried to come up with one unified standard, and it was... I mean, they came up with something. But we shall see. The industry, ICMM has its standards, IFC has its standards. So there are many, many, many different standards. And the question is one of, how do you make sure that a country that has environmental standards that are higher than a different country? So if you're mining and mixing those two, which is the good standard and is it totally clean because of that? That's one aspect.

0:49:55.0 BB: The other aspect, in terms of having good standards and making it still happen in a timely manner, is what is the incentive? What is it that a company or a country that has the highest environmental standards, what is the value addition of adopting those knowing that it has a cost? Some companies are making the case that some premium needs to be put on the price of metal and minerals that had been sourced through good ESG standards.

0:50:39.7 BB: And in the absence of that, it really comes to, you start mining in one country and then you all essentially, as we have seen, or a lot of it goes to China. So you have country A, country B, country C, with different standards. It all gets mixed up there and then it becomes a cell phone that one uses here. So how do you work on the traceability and make sure that at the end of the day, the consumer that is receiving the end product and is interested in ESG, number one, gets the clean ESG. And then if that means a certain cost that they are ready to kind of phase up to that higher cost, or if a metal is created with lower standards, that commercially speaking, it has some barriers or competitively speaking, the metal that had been created with higher ESGs have advantage.

0:51:50.1 BB: So it's a long answer to say that really it's a known entity, what are the good standards? And good mining companies have a very good, clear sense of what to do. Where some work needs to be done in many countries is capacitating government in properly evaluating and assessing the proposal so that they can do the processing in a timely manner and not add to timelines that tend to be actually regulated.

0:52:26.8 SP: Okay, so you've mentioned cell phones. A lot of us are concerned about what to do and to actually be environmentally conscious, but don't quite know what to do. So we know that sometimes these are sourced with artisanal miners, which is not artistic artisanal. It is very hard work and very dangerous in many countries. Two years ago, I think in 2023, almost exactly two years ago, the book Cobalt Red came out called how the Blood of Congo Powers Our Lives by Siddharth Kara. And it's an expose on the immense toll taken on the people and the environment of the DRC, in particular by cobalt mining and goes into the artisanal mines, or the mines and people doing the artisanal mining. But we don't stop our cell phone use, we don't stop buying our computers and yet coltan is used.

0:53:45.9 SP: All of these things that we know are in fact fact being taken out of the ground in countries like the DRC. And yet the companies, Jekyll Mines, I don't even know which ones, Soko mines, etc, that maybe should be putting in place these regulations, maybe the regulations for ESG are up here, but they don't have any impact on the local people.

0:54:15.1 SP: So what can we do as citizens, global citizens, who really do care about our environment? It's one thing to protest conditions or talk about conditions or visit these places and remind governments that these are bad practices or the companies. But what can we do? How do we try to ensure that we're not also complicit?

0:54:49.7 BB: Right. That's a big one. I mean, it's useful to start because artisanal mining is unfortunately viewed much more from the negative dimension than the positive. In a lot of places, artisanal mining is significant. In fact, in many African countries it is the second employer after agriculture. So a lot of the time, and if you care about poor people, the poorest of the poorest actually work in artisanal mining.

0:55:31.6 SP: But who is their employer?

0:55:33.1 BB: Right, yeah, I was coming to that.

0:55:36.3 SP: Sorry.

0:55:37.2 BB: Right. So. And we did quite a few studies more recently in the Sahel in Africa, where artisanal mining is indeed both a source of resilience and a source of conflict, depending on how it's done. Essentially, the point is, from the case in South Africa not that long ago, where you have some mafia people using actually that vulnerability of some of the poorest people putting people in closed mines and any mine that is closed still has some resources, right? It just means that overall it's not economical. So you have all sorts of illicit activities, criminals coming into the activity, all sorts of money laundering coming to clean itself up through artisanal mining.

0:56:58.6 BB: So you have an issue, not necessarily with artisanal miners who unfortunately have techniques and health and safety standards that are not what we should be and who really needs to be helped. So you have that layer of people who abuse the system. So what do we do? What can we do? There is a lot to be done by many stakeholders. If you look at it actually, the amount of investment that bilateral, multilateral countries have put into policies to attract large scale investment into exploration to minimize risks, into capacity building exercises, to make the larger part of the mineral extraction cleaner and with better standard is really, really huge compared to how tiny thinking and capacity have been put into artisanal mining.

0:58:11.4 BB: What can citizens do is to support governance, transparency, traceability measures to help the artisanal mining to improve its techniques and its equity in the revenues. What citizens could do is really through their government and through advocacy and other means, making sure that their governments are paying due attention to the places where the techniques and technology, the artisanal mining is happening and they're sub-standards. And what citizens may do is to start talking with the companies that are perhaps closer, the apples of this world and asking them more questions about how clean some of the inputs in the Apple products are happening.

0:59:27.2 BB: So it's not one action, but it is a series of sets of actions. And I think it's also really important to look at the question from the different angle, which is not necessarily only the consumer. It's also asking the right questions from the leaders of those countries where the artisanal mining is happening. The questions on what is it that they are doing to improve the working conditions and to make sure that some of the practices that are at the core of artisanal mining, as it has happened to be known, negatively, are addressed. So many, many set of activities and actions by partners. But...

1:00:27.6 SP: But no one's advocating on any large scale that we stop our cell phone and computer usage.

1:00:33.3 BB: Right. So I guess, yeah, I mean, that's interesting because at times it is easier to ask for higher ESG than to look at one's own sort of needs and comforts and... Yeah.

1:00:58.9 SP: Understood.

1:01:00.8 BB: So some people do try at their individual level to do what they can. But really what matters is that as an individual, one can take a stand. It's really important. But when there is enough people taking a similar stand and saying no to product coming through certain channels, or alternatively really being ready to advocate that the developmental impact of the activity in the areas or the security or the labor practices improve advocacy at a more collective and more larger aspect is what may have impact.

1:01:55.3 SP: Okay, so I'm going to wrap this up with my last question. Just going off of what we're talking about in terms of traceability. So there have been a lot of processes on other items throughout the years. The Kimberly process, which you mentioned, which I've been involved in, Dodd Frank created a lot of practices, but there are two aspects. So if we look at a country like Rwanda, which has great traceability, except they don't actually extract anything in their own country, but they've put in place a system that says, everything that we mine is beautiful, it's wonderful, no child labor, et cetera, except that all of the product comes from the DRC.

1:02:48.4 SP: So traceability then is suspect unless we call it out. But then you go to the other end and you say, okay, let's say we can trace it. We've got the ICGLR, we've got Kimberly, we've got all of these different processes. But how do... Even once it's sourced well, if the companies or countries that actually are the owners of these mines are 68% owned by a China or a private company from whatever country, does the country that is sitting on these actual mines, how much of it is their responsibility when the majority ownership isn't even in the country's name?

1:03:51.3 BB: Right. I think, at least in theory, whether you are a majority, whoever is a majority shareholder of an operation is operating in a country that has a legal regulatory framework. It's really...

1:04:12.6 SP: In theory.

1:04:14.8 BB: Right. That's where I'm coming. It's really, really important to... And that's the point I was trying to make during the presentation, to make sure that the capacities to manage, to control, to monitor, to enforce, whether it's the health and safety dimensions, whether it's environment, whether it's the revenues actually, it's really important actually to make sure that the institutional capacities are in place. And unfortunately, they are not in place in many, many, many places. That's certainly, in my experience, the easier dialogue because, both the companies with the higher ESG standards and lower ESG standards actually have the same types of licenses from the same government to operate within that government. So you would expect that the government at least, is making sure that its own standards are being implemented. And since it is not implemented, that's why you're talking or you can see cases of child labor and so on. I mean, I have yet to visit a country and look closely and see laws that are saying, it is allowed for children to work here into mines.

1:05:43.9 BB: So I think that at times it's really good that from the developed, industrialized countries there is this demand for ESG. I think at times it's really important for the leaders of the countries themselves to want the population not only to do mining in the correct ways, but to benefit from it. So that is something that is not already happening. And at times, it's really easier even for rulers to complain about country A, country B, as opposed to really enforcing the laws that they have put in place or to work to make sure that their citizens benefit from their heritage because the minerals are actually heritage for many, many countries.

1:06:47.2 SP: Okay, question time for all of you. Nayab, I think, is going to be... Are you reading questions?

1:06:56.7 Nayab Ali: I am.

1:06:57.4 SP: Yes. Okay. And so many of you have submitted questions. We also have people online who have submitted questions. Again, I don't know how many we're going to get through, but if you still have them and you want to submit them on the QR code, that would be great.

1:07:13.3 NA: All right. Can you hear me? Yes. So, hello, everyone. My name is Nayab Ali. I'm the program manager for Weiser Diplomacy Center. Thank you so much, Ambassador Page and Mr. Bocoum.

1:07:22.8 SP: She's my right hand Woman.

1:07:27.7 NA: Thank you, Ambassador Page and Mr. Bocoum, for the very insightful discussion. We have way too many questions, so there's no way we can get through all of them. But I would combine some questions for you together. So the first one is, given the Trump administration's historical stance on protectionist trade policies, how might a return to such policies affect global competition and cooperation in critical minerals? Could we have tensions with China under the current administration, particularly regarding rare earth minerals, and how might this affect US industries dependent on these critical resources?

1:08:02.4 BB: Huh.

1:08:03.3 NA: These are two questions.

1:08:07.0 BB: Yeah. I think really what... I mean, this administration is what, two months old? So a lot of policies are still to be articulated, at least as far as I know. But what is really interesting is to look at the first Trump administration because the first actually critical minerals list of the US had been put in place under him. So first Trump administration was already working on the critical minerals. And judging by what we can all hear on the news, the critical minerals or the minerals remain important for the US and it is so in my view because it is critically important for US economic performance, for its defense, for its security, for its technologies to get access to those minerals.

1:09:18.5 BB: So that's perhaps a point to be made. How China and other countries looking at minerals will fair, if you step back actually and look at the geological endowment of planet Earth in terms of these minerals, really there is enough minerals actually to satisfy the demand, but they are in the ground. And how fast can you get them to get parties to get access to the minerals is the question. And what is being played out is various parties looking at the resilience of their supplies or of their access to minerals? Where would that lead is still being played out, whether restrictions are being used as a tool. I think we have the answer. You know, there are some restrictions that have been put on critical minerals just a few months ago in 2024 regarding the export of some of those metals to the US. That's one part of the equation, on the other part. So you have a larger story and competition and positioning that goes beyond minerals. And really hopefully we'll get to a point where some equilibrium is found at the right level and that we are not getting into a conflict, which I guess is not good for anybody.

1:11:37.0 NA: Thank you. How do you expect that the World Bank will evolve its extractive global programmatic support EGPS programming over the next few years?

1:11:48.8 BB: Well, the EGPS is evolving along the discourse on critical minerals. Within EGPS now is a window called rise resilient supply chain. I can't remember the acronyms, but anyway, it's how to support resilient supply chains for minerals. And countries like Japan had invested quite a lot. So it's evolving to really provide for some of the actions I described. And one of them is to diversify the processing sources of the minerals. It's to support the analytics that are required for countries to potentially put in place processing capabilities.

1:13:00.0 BB: It's evolving to support strategies for clean energy and multi access infrastructure development to support a resilient supply chain for the minerals. So those are some of the directions in which EGPS and its rise window are evolving so is broadly speaking our interventions in the mining sector to both increase the supply, support, transport, energy infrastructure, clean energy infrastructure, support skills development for our partner countries. Because this is one of the questions, like a lot of countries want to become part of the supply chains. Depending on what you're talking about really there could be barriers including skills. Some of those technologies require skills that not all countries have. So we're evolving along the line of making sure that there is adequate critical mineral production to meet the demands of a low carbon future.

1:14:18.9 NA: Great, thank you. Could you please share an example of how the three approaches or pillars of community partnerships look like in practice? Also, you mentioned that community engagement is particularly challenging. What makes it so challenging?

1:14:38.5 BB: It's many reasons. A lot of the companies that have to deal with the communities are... Well, I mean things have changed. But a lot of engineers, lots of people who are not necessarily in the development space and all of a sudden, a minor is asked to work on local development, on engaging with communities. Nowadays, there are all sort of professionals that are within that industry. So it's engaging with communities, it's understanding the local history, the local culture, the local ways of doing things that could be quite different at times from what a company is used to doing in its home country. And it's difficult because a company comes a times in a community with really good practices and advanced practices in labor and so on and so forth just to find itself dealing with the political economy of local lives and how powers are distributed, who gets the jobs, whether it's linked with ethnic background, with all that sort of... So it just a softer side of the business that is quite challenging and demands professionalism and then trust building which takes time. And quite a bit of these communities have ever lived experiences that are not positive or heard about those that are not positive.

1:16:51.6 BB: So being consistent and engaging in a long term manner is really quite important. In terms of what to do on the free aspect developed, one thing, certainly from really very practical side of the equation, one thing communities are really looking for is job. So they look for a mining company for jobs and then mining by definition is not the largest employer of largest employer in general. So the question is what undertakings could be put in place to develop non mining jobs? A lot of the time in a lot of countries nowadays there are funds earmarked for community development as part of regulatory approaches. So a company coming on top of that way with CSR and very importantly with at times much better capacities in terms of human resources can be really helpful in catalyzing together with the government, good investment of the resources that are coming for community development using, all sorts of capacities, advisory services, on whatever the economic opportunity happened to be on the community, to make sure that there is a long term thinking in terms of job creation, in terms of lives having been there before the mine and needing to be there after the mine.

1:18:47.3 BB: So how do you invest into the community? How do you capacitate them over time to be increasingly less dependent on the mining sector? How actually does a government make sure that all these investments that are being done are done in a coherent manner that also fit the national development trajectory? So those are some of the things I think warrant further attention than has been the case in the past.

1:19:25.3 NA: Thank you. What are the options for an accord to ensure safe mining and equitable distribution of profits to mining communities?

1:19:36.6 BB: Well, usually the safety of mines are part of the regulatory sort of dimension. So that's defined as part of either the state or national laws. And in terms of the equity of benefits, various countries have various circumstances. You have cases where really the agreement is between a state and a mining company. Cases where agreement can be between a community and a mining company. And the Royal Bafokeng King is in South Africa is one such an example of a king who happened to have lots of platinum mines in the community, is receiving quite a bit of royalties for platinum mining and really using it quite wisely in terms of building schools, providing bursaries and actually investing some of the benefit that are received. Some of the revenues that come in stock exchange and doing quite some good things. So...

1:21:12.8 SP: So in that case, it depends on the structure of that particular country.

1:21:17.3 BB: Right. Right. Yeah.

1:21:21.8 NA: Great. Thank you. What is the current, and what should be the future role of the local government in the DRC in the current scenario where it is fundamental to implement sustainable solutions?

1:21:35.3 BB: Well, I mean, local government are really, really important. We are talking about local economic development. Local government, broadly speaking, are the ones that are supposed to put in place the local economic development plans, are supposed to be implementing it. Those government are supposed to receive some of the revenues that are supposed to come to benefit the communities. So having good governance, which is really critical whether you're talking central or locally, is important together actually with good implementation capacities. And I think, civil society organizations have a critical role in making sure that revenues that go to communities are used efficiently, that appropriate participatory processes are in place for youth, for women to participate. But also that these plans that are put together for local economic development are really gender and youth sensitive. So those are the types of things that local government are supposed to be doing. And DRC is not an exception. So they have a significant role to play because at the end of the day, it needs to be implemented locally. And the local government, local authorities are the ones that are leading the exercise on the ground.

1:23:25.4 SP: Except in the case of the DRC, where especially in Eastern Congo, you have M23 that's taken over and has gone so far as to Bukavu. In that case, is M23 extracting any of these mine minerals?

1:23:57.8 BB: Look...

1:23:57.8 SP: Because in some cases the new rebel government, it's not a vacuum. They established their procedures. Would they be, I mean essentially, taking care of the governance of the area? How are, or do you know what they're... In the past, has there been use of the minerals?

1:24:27.9 BB: Well, I mean, M23 and in other places, like you put it, unfortunately, when places are taken over either by rebels or jihadists at that time, unfortunately they have access... I mean this is why the term conflict mineral is used. They have had access to minerals and have found channels through which to export the minerals and make revenues out of it and use it not for development purposes, but for arming themselves and causing at times even more harm than more harm. So M23, since they occupied recently, I am not privy to factual information about what they have been doing with the mines, but there are certainly cases out there in the past where rebels have leverage mineral endowment to secure revenues.

1:25:44.9 NA: So we just have two minutes left and I have a really short question. Do you know of any successful worker owned mining companies?

1:25:53.7 BB: Worker owned mining company. Well, that's an interesting question because for somebody who went to study in the former Soviet Union, like everything was supposed to be owned by workers. So whether there are cases out there where now an industrial mine or... Okay, so if you look at artisanal and small scale mining, then the answer is yes. There are quite a lot of cooperatives that own and operate artisanal and small scale mines. So in this case, you can say that workers own the mines. In terms of large scale mining, it could be, but I'm really not aware of a very large mine that is owned by the workers, tends to be owned by private companies, state owned companies, all sorts of entities. But workers, it is possible, but I'm not aware.

1:27:13.9 NA: Great. We have a lot more questions, but no time. Thank you so much.

1:27:19.2 BB: Thank you.

1:27:19.9 SP: Let's give him a hand.

[applause]

1:27:27.1 SP: Thank you all for coming and again, thank you so much to our audience watching live and those who will watch it later. And thanks also to the African Studies Center who co-sponsored this, and to the World Bank for allowing you to come here and speak with us.

1:27:45.9 BB: Thank you.

1:27:46.4 SP: Thank you very much.

[applause]