As leaders converge at the United Nations headquarters in New York for the 80th session of the General Assembly, the air is thick with expectation. Representatives of all 193 UN Member States, joined by two Observer delegations, will take to the podium during the General Debate in the storied Assembly Hall. Around the UN campus, parallel high-level meetings will wrestle with some of the world’s most urgent challenges.
This is no ordinary gathering. With crises ranging from protracted wars and accelerating climate change to widening gender gaps and the ethical quandaries of artificial intelligence, the high-level week has taken on existential significance. It is a rare moment for the global community not just to reflect on the past, but to recommit to cooperation and reimagine pathways for a more stable and just future.
Related Article: What Happened at Africa’s 2nd Climate Summit in Ethiopia?
This session, known as UNGA 80, also carries symbolic weight as it marks the 80th anniversary of the United Nations itself. The theme, “Better Together: 80 Years and More for Peace, Development and Human Rights”, places renewed emphasis on the organisation’s founding pillars while acknowledging the turbulent present. On the agenda are a summit on financing for sustainable development, a high-stakes Climate Summit, the launch of a Global Dialogue on AI Governance, and new commitments on noncommunicable diseases and mental health.
One of Africa’s most pressing items at this year’s Assembly is reform of the Security Council. The African Union Committee of Ten Heads of State and Government is expected to press again for the addition of two permanent African members to the Council. The demand is not new, but it is urgent. For decades, Africa has been the subject of the majority of Security Council deliberations, yet it has no permanent representation in shaping those outcomes.
Beyond representation, Africa’s leaders will also be seeking predictable financing for peace operations. Although the continent shoulders the weight of some of the world’s toughest conflicts, from the Sahel to the Horn of Africa, its peace missions often operate with fragile budgets and inconsistent international support.
Peace Must Be Paid For
At the heart of this global framework lies UN Security Council Resolution 2719, adopted in December 2023. The resolution provides a mechanism for financing African Union-led peace support operations (AUPSOs) through UN-assessed contributions. It allows up to 75 per cent of the costs of AU missions to be funded by the regular UN budget, provided the missions are authorised under relevant mandates. Yet implementation remains fraught with complexity. Issues such as burden sharing, joint planning, and whether subregional operations qualify are unresolved.
The AU has consistently stepped into the breach when conflicts flare from insurgencies in the Sahel to instability in the Horn of Africa and communal violence elsewhere. But its missions cannot thrive on political goodwill alone. Resolution 2719 was a breakthrough, but it remains far from fully operational. Many missions still lack clarity on what qualifies as an AU-led operation, how the UN and AU should coordinate, and what financial and political commitments member states must make.
African leaders must therefore press for binding commitments: predictable and sustainable funding, stronger oversight and governance, and mechanisms for equitable burden-sharing. Without these assurances, AU missions risk being perpetually underfunded and strategically sidelined. Only through such reforms can peace operations effectively protect communities and open pathways for lasting development.
The Minerals of Tomorrow
If security is Africa’s immediate concern, minerals are its strategic ace. With the global economy undergoing an energy transition, critical minerals are now as consequential as oil once was. From cobalt and graphite to manganese, copper, nickel and lithium, Africa holds a significant share of global reserves.
According to the UN Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), the continent possesses 55 per cent of the world’s cobalt, 47.65 per cent of manganese, 21.6 per cent of natural graphite, 5.9 per cent of copper, and 5.6 per cent of nickel. Lithium reserves, though modest at just over 1 per cent, are rapidly gaining attention as exploration expands.
Yet Africa captures little of the true value. Barely 2 per cent of transition mineral exports remain on the continent in a processed form. Most are shipped raw to Europe, North America and Asia, where they are refined, transformed into high-value components, and sold back at multiples of the original price. Researchers estimate that with expanded processing and beneficiation, Africa could add up to $24 billion to its GDP and generate 2.3 million jobs.
In response, policymakers and industry have begun to act. In December 2024, the African Union launched the African Green Minerals Strategy, a framework to develop local value chains, stimulate green technology manufacturing, and anchor mineral-based economic transformation. Many African governments are also tightening rules on unprocessed exports, seeking to ensure that value is created closer to home.
Trade Imbalances, Tariffs, and the Unequal Bargain
Global trade regimes are being redrawn by the energy transition. For mineral-rich Africa, this offers both promise and peril. Protectionist measures, tariff barriers, and export restrictions imposed by major economies threaten to lock the continent into its old role as a supplier of cheap raw materials. Even where exemptions are granted, the more profitable downstream activities, processing, refining, and manufacturing remain largely outside Africa’s control.
Nearly half of Africa’s 54 countries have now introduced bans or restrictions on raw mineral exports to force processing within their borders. The example of Zimbabwe is telling. Aiming to phase out raw lithium exports by 2027, the country has already seen earnings from lithium leap from US$70 million in 2022 to US$600 million in 2023. This trajectory is promising, but it demands complementary investments in infrastructure, energy access, skills development, and finance to be sustainable.
Meanwhile, the United States has rolled out a reciprocal tariff regime, exempting only a handful of minerals, while the European Union continues to push its “strategic minerals partnerships”. These partnerships often favour foreign companies, leaving Africa with limited control over pricing and value capture.
Without coordinated strategies, the continent risks being permanently confined to low-margin positions in global value chains. It is in this light that Nigeria’s President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and Kenya’s President William Ruto are convening the Africa Minerals Strategy Group (AMSG) on the sidelines of UNGA 80. Launched in Kampala in January 2024, the AMSG is designed to ensure that Africa does not simply feed global supply chains but co-authors the rules of the minerals economy.
What’s Lost If Africa Remains a Raw Supplier?
If Africa fails to assert itself during UNGA 80, the cost will be more than lost revenue. It will be lost opportunity, lost dignity, and continued dependency. The global race for minerals is geopolitical; whoever controls the rules, pricing, energy security, supply chains—will shape global industrial capacity for decades. Africa has the reserves. It also has the moral claim to self-determination, fair trade, and peace. What remains is leadership, unity, and a willingness to insist that the terms of engagement change.
When Unity Becomes Leverage
Africa’s agenda at UNGA 80 must therefore be sharp, uncompromising, and collective. Demands for fair trade, tariff protection for processed goods, and industrialisation pathways must be accompanied by a unified push for Security Council reform and sustainable financing of AU-led peace operations.
Equally, frameworks such as the AfCFTA and the African Green Minerals Strategy must be leveraged to build shared infrastructure, harmonise regulations, and create integrated markets. Only by pooling sovereignty in such areas can African states escape the cycle of fragmentation that weakens their bargaining power.
Transparency is critical. Citizens must trust that the benefits of mineral wealth and peace operations flow back into communities rather than vanishing through corruption or ecological destruction. And partnerships must require technology transfer and on-continent value addition, rather than merely extraction.
The geopolitics of the energy transition has elevated Africa’s minerals to the centre of the world’s industrial future. At the same time, the continent’s conflicts continue to test the credibility of both the AU and the UN. The choices made at UNGA 80 could therefore define Africa’s role in global affairs for decades to come.
If African leaders act in unison, they can turn their mineral wealth and peacekeeping sacrifices into real leverage, shaping rules rather than reacting to them. If they hesitate, the continent will once again find itself supplying raw materials while others dictate the terms.
UNGA 80 is not just another diplomatic season, it is Africa’s moment to demand, and to demand with purpose.
