High-Level International Dialogue on Africa and the Energy Transition (Climate Week 2)

Transition minerals such as lithium, cobalt, manganese, and graphite are critical to the clean energy transition. For Africa and other resource-rich regions, the governance of these minerals will determine whether they contribute to sustainable development, economic transformation, and justice—or reinforce existing inequities.

The Southern African Resource Watch (SARW), in collaboration with its civil society partners and the Think 20 (T-20), will host the Third High-level International Dialogue on Energy Transitions in Africa on 5 and 6 September 2025, in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, as part of the Second African Climate Summit (ACS2) pre-summit policy week. This significant gathering will explore the policies, practices, actors, and initiatives that influence the interface between the extraction and use of Africa’s abundant energy resources, including fossil fuels - oil, gas, and coal - and critical energy transition minerals (CETMs) such as graphite, copper, cobalt, manganese, nickel, lithium, and Rare Earth Elements. It will also examine the supply and demand factors shaped by the global decarbonization agenda, trade disputes, and geopolitics.

The dialogue will shed light on some of the most challenging questions for Africa’s development trajectory, considering its mineral resource-driven economies, such as:

• Critical energy transition minerals and renewable energy value chains
• Geopolitics of critical energy transition minerals
• The future of oil, gas, and coal resources in Africa
• The implications of an energy transition for local communities, indigenous people, workers, and the natural environment
• How to maximize the impact of Philanthropy in all areas of the energy transition at a time when official international development assistance is in a marked decline