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Africa’s metals and minerals: Zambia cracks the Resource Curse
The copper-rich country models how the mining industry can catalyse meaningful transformation on the continent.
Reflecting on 2025 as the culmination of President Hichilema’s 4-year visionary programme of policy changes, economic renewal and the resultant impacts on the mining industry, Zambia is a case study of sound achievement.
Last year saw significant further progress towards finalising its debt restructure. Of the US$13.3 billion external debt burden, 94% had been renegotiated by the end of 2025 – a factor in Fitch’s recent decision to upgrade Zambia’s outlook to ‘stable, B-’.
During 2025 the kwacha appreciated 32% against the U.S. dollar. Remarkably, in the first week of 2026 it was officially the world’s best-performing currency. And a new directive that all domestic transactions must be captured and settled in kwacha should further strengthen the role of the currency and the effectiveness of the government’s monetary policy. On the back of this, Zambia’s stock market powers ahead, its index reflecting the second-highest rise of almost 100 exchanges worldwide in the first few weeks of 2026.
The scene has been set for the country’s mining industry to boom. Last year’s signals were definitive: there is a surging demand for critical metals and minerals. Platinum group metal prices soared – as did gold, based on concerns over geopolitical uncertainty and sentiments about rising inflation in the U.S. Most significantly for countries such as Zambia and the DRC, copper’s price per tonne rose by over 40%, reaching a record London Metal Exchange price of US$ 13,138 in July before stabilising to US$ 12,405 by the end of December. These gains were the largest in a decade, driven by worldwide requirements for copper in the modernisation of electricity grids, inputs into renewables, and industrial expansion, among other factors.
A major regional transport infrastructure overhaul is under way, too. The Lobito Corridor project is progressing, and agreements have been struck with China to commit US$1.4 billion to upgrade the Tanzania-Zambia (Tan-Zam) railway. These links will significantly boost transport capacity for Zambia’s copper exports.
Spurred by the opportunities for growth presented by these policy initiatives and developments, and with renewed confidence in the industry’s prospects in Zambia, mining conglomerates committed to new projects during 2025. KoBold Metals and Vedanta Resources announced fresh explorations and investments, and Canadian giant, Barrick, confirmed its goal of doubling copper production by way of its US$ 2 billion Lumwana mine expansion. Most notably, First Quantum Minerals (FQM) activated its Kansanshi S3 expansion, a flagship US$ 1.25 billion investment signifying the company’s vision of sustainable, 25-plus year growth in its Zambia operations, job creation, and social contribution – a buy-in to, and alignment with, President Hichilema’s economic transformation agenda.
Importantly, domestic participation in the industry is stimulated by the Mining Local Content Bill, mandating mining companies to allocate at least 20% of procurement to locally-owned enterprises. The quota is targeted to rise to 40% in five years’ time.
These are powerful and appreciable changes for the industry and the people of Zambia. Assessed together, this is what planning for the future looks like.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has expressed confidence that the country will sustain responsible policies and initiatives towards inclusive growth, noting how political and macroeconomic stability is vital in the lead-in to this year’s elections. The global finance and investment and mining industries will be hoping that the UPND party wins the poll so that President Hichilema retains a mandate to continue reforming and regearing the economy.
Breaking free from history’s burden
It’s important to understand and learn from the past, too, not least because much of Africa still struggles with the Resource Curse, the paradox whereby a wealth of natural resources often dampens growth and development prospects by disincentivising broader industrialisation and economic diversification, in turn causing an over-reliance on the resource.
When this concentration of economic activity in one sector continues for decades, other sociopolitical problems may also arise. In the mid-1970s, as global copper prices slumped, drastically slashing the country’s earnings and badly damaging its mono-economy, Kenneth Kaunda, the nation’s president between 1964 and 1991, lamented that Zambians “are cursed to be born with a copper spoon in our mouths.” But he also acknowledged that “we are in part to blame” for issues like corruption and weak economic policy which had contributed to the citizenry’s disaffection.
Zambia has now course corrected, but the list of other African nations with abundant natural resources but nonetheless undergoing stagnation, weak growth and political instability, is long: Angola, Chad, the DRC, Ghana, Mali, Nigeria, Zimbabwe, and even, to an extent, South Africa.
So the optimistic indicators and rosy statistics about Africa’s metal and mineral resources and reserves reflect a simplistic picture. A broader evaluation asks, ‘Where does the value chain lead, where do profits land, which segments of global society benefit most from Africa’s mining operations?
Illustratively, social studies professor Andrew Fischer of the Erasmus University Rotterdam presents sobering recent research into Zambia’s capital inflows, outflows and earnings. Mining is the largest industry contributor to GDP, and the country is Africa’s second-largest copper producer, the metal’s exports accounting for US$ 7.6 billion in 2024 export earnings, 67.3% of the nation’s total of US$11.3 billion that year. But Fischer points out that because mining in Zambia – and therefore its economy – is dominated by global conglomerates, the industry’s earnings flow predominantly to foreign shareholders, who, rather than Zambia itself, are the real beneficiaries of booms in copper and other metals prices.
Looking deeper, 43% of Zambia’s copper exports route to Switzerland, the headquarters of commodities traders such as Glencore – which pulled out of Zambia in 2021. The governments of Zambia and the DRC recently entered into affiliation agreements with the aim of evolving their countries’ participation in the world’s copper market from raw metal supply only to benefitting, also, from the metal’s global trading ecosystem. It’s a further positive move. However, the narrative that African nations automatically leap forward as metals prices increase, new mines open and demand and output expand, while partly accurate, is also flawed.
Even foundational corporate behaviour – operating safely, adhering to industry regulations, being an employer of good standing, and paying all applicable taxes – isn’t always
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1 The Resource Curse: The Cases of Botswana and Zambia, Audria Crain, University of Denver, Digital Commons, 11 January 2010. See p88.
happening. A 2021 report by the IMF, for instance, concluded that sub-Saharan African countries lose up to US$ 730 million annually through tax avoidance by the mining industry. And last year’s Sino-Metals Leach facility disaster affecting the Kafue River is proof that environmental risks remains a major issue, one in which the costs of degradation and loss cut into the industry’s net value creation.
Role player inertia
African governments have been painfully slow to recognise their responsibilities in fostering the mining industry and springboarding their economies off its potential. The African Union (AU) announced an African Mining Vision, setting out its ambition of downstream industry value-add…in 2009. The AU then took seven years to set up a Minerals Development Centre to implement the vision. Three years after that, it essentially just rebranded the vision, as the African Commodities Strategy. As the Africa Centre for Strategic Studies politely notes, there is much documentation, but a lack of action, even within the continent’s regional economic communities. As such, to an extent, Zambia has had to take the lead, using the copper and commodities boom to activate “a sea change in thinking as far as national resources are concerned,” says the thinktank.
The shadow of a skills shortage
Africa lags, too, in the development of its human resources. There is a global skills deficit, and the gap is widening as digital transformation ramps up. African industries and businesses, however, are hit worse than in many other parts of the world due to weaker education systems and outcomes on the continent.
Africa’s educational institutions, including many of its elite tertiary establishments, do not prepare young people for the demands of the private sector. This requires the mining sector to use a consistent stream of expatriate expertise; knowledge is transferred – but it shouldn’t need to be.
And there’s a conundrum associated with the Zambian government’s intention to triple copper production by 2031. The World Bank calculates that mining employment will rise almost fourfold, from 56,000 jobs currently to an estimated 200,000 – but only if Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) can keep pace with requirements. This, says the Bank, is a huge challenge, as “there are simply not enough training institutions in Zambia offering technician- and technologist-level training courses.” In 2023 there were only 800 graduates with qualifications relevant to and accepted by the mining industry; of these, just 160 obtained technician- or artisan-level job qualifications.
These numbers do not factor in the acute shortage of truck, excavator, grader and other equipment operators, nor that of infrastructure skills, vital for access roads and mine construction. Clearly, the industry will not deliver its full potential unless the skills pipeline improves significantly – and soon.
A positive outlook for 2026, and beyond
Overall, however, Zambia’s progression provides learnings for other resource-rich countries in Africa.
Having secured the foundations for ensuring the mining industry’s success, Zambia now needs to prioritise the building blocks of a diversified economy. Creditably, strategies are also being formulated to stimulate mining’s deeper value chain within the country and region. Given that there are ten or more years between exploration, planning and construction, startup, and a mine’s financial returns, this is key.
Copper and other metals prices may be subject to falls or volatility, but adding downstream manufacturing value will industrialise Zambia’s economy and spur wider job creation, flipping the Resource Curse into a legacy of domestic wealth.
JVChantete has contributed to and grown alongside Zambia’s economy for the past 27 years, having trained tens of thousands of people. The company has a 30% local shareholding and continues to strive to improve the lives and livelihoods of its approximately 1,000 employees.