DAY 1 Roundup – Monday 9 February 2026
Todays’ discussions focused on commodity outlooks, how to leverage the rise of new investors in critical minerals, and big questions around industrialisation and workforce readiness. All sessions were anchored around the central theme of this year’s Indaba – progress through partnerships – and how the right strategic collaborations can unlock growth, strengthen resilience, and position African economies for long-term competitiveness.
The TDi team in Cape Town
Summary | Day 1
Commodity outlooks (see below for further details)
- Copper dynamics are increasingly scarcity-driven with near-term tightness and a fragile project pipeline pointing to deficit risk
- Lithium supply is shifting, with China rising as a supplier in 2026 and Africa framed as a major future growth frontier
Public and private sector contributions to implementing critical material strategies:
- Information flows should be reciprocal, with communities not only contributing data and insights, but also receiving transparent, timely information that supports trust, participation, and informed decision-making.
- Standards should allow for phased compliance and continuous improvement, rather than binary pass-fail thresholds that risk excluding key actors – particularly artisanal and small-scale miners (ASM).
- Public-private and development finance partnerships are increasingly critical to mobilising capital, de-risk investment, and accelerate project delivery at scale.
Landscape scale, long-term approach
- Mining in Africa should be approached not merely as resource extraction, but as a catalyst for long-term development.
- This means leveraging mining to build integrated value chains – such as transport infrastructure, ports, beneficiation, and supporting industries – while developing local skills and stimulating domestic economies.
- Realising this opportunity requires strong partnerships and aligned regional governance, bringing together governments, regional development banks, civil society, and other stakeholders to drive inclusive, sustainable regional development.
‘Cobalt’ a community-centred social experiment
In this immersive session organised by the European Partnership for Responsible Minerals in close collaboration with the Collectif Cobalt, participants were invited to learn with and from one another. The experience shines a light on local dynamics and community experiences enabling open dialogue about how mining impacts people and places. TDi, sister organisation, The Impact Facility, and this year’s Community Voices winners all took part in this session.
You can hear more from Community Voices winners Nkosi Sibanda, Dr Matondo Estrela Garcia Cardoso, and Yamikani Jimusole in TDi’s Mining Indaba 2026 podcast series.
Copper
- Today’s speakers framed copper as moving beyond traditional commodity fundamentals into a market increasingly driven by scarcity and strategic anxiety
- Backwardation was highlighted as a signal that near-term shortages are being priced in and tightness is real in the short-term
- A key concern is the supply pipeline – underinvestment in exploration and development is creating reliance on uncommitted/uncertain projects, increasing fragility
- Outlook message – a material deficit risk is emerging over the next few years amplified by project execution risk and unsuccessful project delivery
Key takeaway: copper is increasingly being treated like a strategic asset, with tightness, disruption risk and a fragile project pipeline driving expectations of deficit.
Battery metals
- Energy storage was framed as a major demand driver by today’s speakers, with BESS highlighted as the current growth engine for batteries
- China is expected to become a larger lithium supplier in 2026 – driven mainly by brine projects and new developments
- Africa was positioned as a future lithium growth hub with Zimbabwe and Nigeria noted as early movers in building capacity
- Speakers suggestd raw material rallies may eventually lose steam due to ‘bullwhip’ dynamics (inventory cycles) with fundamentals returning as the main driver.
Key takeaway: lithium is moving from a pure price narrative to a capacity and industrialisation narrative, with Africa increasingly positioned as a key future supplier region.
Strategic partnerships
- Metals and mining were described as moving up fund managers’ priority lists, with public-private partnerships and development finance becoming increasingly central
- Financing structures (debt, royalties) and new partnership models were framed as necessary to unlock project delivery at speed
- Host governments were positioned as crucial in early-stage de-risking and in connecting communities, the private sector and government, to support social license and execution.
Key takeaway: the mining bottleneck is increaseingly capital and execution capacity, and partnerships are becoming the practical mechanism to deliver supply at pace.
Day 2 preview
- TDi’s Assheton Stewart Carter will be chairing a session on the lessons we can learn from Guinea’s use of partnerships in realising its iron ore potential
- Stronger together in practice: This year’s Community Voices winners will discuss how meaningful partnerships can be built in critical mineral communities – looking at practical lessons and constructive models for community-company-state partnerships in the critical minerals sector
- Catch tomorrow’s round-up video where we’ll be covering all of the above, and other highlights from day 2 including addressing infrastructure challenges, reimagining mining partnerships, and accelerating mining tech.
