By Lesedi Sibiya-Diplomatic Insider

The Investing in African Mining Indaba has gone underway in Cape Town and is set to take place from 9-12 February. The conference facilitates the gathering of various industry leaders, government officials and investors to highlight and discuss solutions regarding mining in Africa.

This year’s theme “Building Critical Mineral Value Chains in South Africa” as the South African government will aim to restore investor confidence within the country’s mining sector. The Mayor of Cape Town, Geordin Hill-Lewis, delivered an address at the Mining Indaba.

 “The real opportunity lies not only in what all of our business and industries take out of the ground in our mining operations, it lies in how mining can support our long term development in Africa; building our local supply chains and industries, creating skills, supporting communities and contributing to stable growing national economies.” said the Mayor in his address.

Minister of Minerals and Petroleum Resources Gwede Mantashe also gave his address at the Mining Indaba as he expressed the need for South Africa and other developing countries to preserve their natural resources and protect them from developed nations seeking to take control over those resources.

“We are witnessing heightened geo-political tensions in the world, driven largely by competition of some developed economies seeking greater control of natural resources of developing nations. It is not our fault that we have deposits here but the great nations want to have control over those deposits though they are with us, so we are willing to protect them.” said Mantashe in his speech.

 “If we discover copper in the Northern Cape, we have an obligation to talk to Zambia and the DRC [ Democratic Republic of Congo] so that we don’t flood the market and kill the price of copper unintentionally.” added Mantashe.

 President and CEO of Africa Finance Cooperation, Somalia Zubairu, spoke on the “Financing the Future” as he highlighted the launch of the Annual Compendium of strategic minerals. “It is for us as Africans to understand that we need to reframe how we see minerals, they are not just commodities for export, they are essential tools in our development. We want the world to understand that we do have needs as we’ve expressed and that our needs are valuable and we have to build together” said Zubairu.

 Zubairu mentioned that policy coordination is vital for how Africa will preserve their minerals

Chair of the Advisory Board investing in Mining African Indaba, Frans Baleni also addressed the conference this morning in order to welcome the various opportunities that this indaba is aiming to build. “Amid today’s shifts of the geo-political landscape as supply chains and investment flows are redefined, Africa must stand as a pillar of growth and foundation stability…we are going to reflect both progress achieved and the ongoing transformation shaping our industry on a broader African landscape,” said Baleni in his address.

Angola is said to be seeking a 20%-30% stake in Anglo American’s diamond unit De Beers, a proposal that is also being discussed by various diamond producing African nations. Angola submitted the bid in October 2025 but at the time were only seeking a minority stake in De Beers.

 “Taking the majority stake within luxury commodities is very dangerous because it depends on the market…so to de-risk that, we have a portion that is sustainable for our economy, and that range is between 20% and 30%, we are happy about that” said Angola’s national director of mineral resources, Paulo Tanganha.

Tanganha also highlighted that closed-door discussions were happening between Botswana, Namibia, Angola and South Africa in order to discuss how each country would benefit from having a stake in De Beers as no agreement has been reached yet.

The De Beers Luanda Accord was discussed at the Mining Indaba, as it aims to rebuild consumer trust and interest in natural diamonds by emphasising the importance of these minerals and to highlight positive economic and social contributions of the natural diamond industry.