Civil Society Statement to SADC Leaders

45 civil society organisations are calling on SADC heads of state to ensure that Africa’s minerals serve the people, not just global markets. While the region holds the resources driving the clean energy transition, over 100 million people still live without electricity, and communities face environmental harm, displacement, and rights violations. The extractive model of exporting raw minerals has failed Africa’s people and economies.

We are calling on SADC leaders to invest in regional value chains, green industrialisation, and universal energy access. Bold, coordinated action is needed now, starting with governments and institutions stepping up. We must prevent repeating historical mistakes and abuses associated with mineral extraction. African minerals can create jobs, strengthen regional sovereignty, and drive a just, people-centred transition. Find out more and join the Just Minerals Africa campaign here.

Civil Society Statement to SADC Leaders

2025 SADC Heads of State and Government Summit
Antananarivo, Madagascar – 17-19 August 2025

Transition Minerals Must Serve the People: Unite for Green Industrialisation, Energy Access, and Regional Sovereignty

Your Excellencies,

We, the undersigned civil society organisations from across Southern Africa, speak to you today from a place of urgency, unity, and deep belief in our region’s potential. As the world accelerates its energy transition, Africa stands, once again, at the centre of a global resource rush. The minerals found in our soils are indispensable to powering green technologies and the world is coming for them.

Yet, here at home, over 100 million of our people still lack electricity. We remain dependent on raw material exports. Our countries bear the environmental and social costs of extraction while others reap the benefits of transformation elsewhere. For centuries, Africa has served as the world’s raw materials provider. That extractivist model has failed our people, failed our economies, and threatens to fail our future. We are united in calling for a bold break from this unjust path.

We want to see a region where minerals are no longer exported raw, but instead transformed into value-added products through shared infrastructure, joint investments, and aligned policies. We want to see regional value chains that create decent jobs, expand access to clean energy and drive trade. We want a green industrial base that serves our development goals, with robust environmental safeguards and a clear commitment to ensuring that communities benefit, not suffer, from resource development.

We are calling for the realisation of a long-held regional vision. It is a long-standing ambition rooted in frameworks like the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), the Africa Mining Vision, Africa Green Minerals Strategy (AGMS), and SADC’s own industrialisation and mining strategies. These frameworks reflect a shared commitment to shift away from raw extraction and towards regional value creation and economic prosperity. We are calling for bold implementation and tangible, coordinated action to bring this shared vision to life

We urge you to champion the following actions, grounded in the recommendations of our policy brief on the subject:

1.  Reclaim public leadership in building foundational infrastructure for energy access and regional integration, prioritising people and long-term development over private short-term profit. Public-led and community-oriented investments in grids, interconnectors, and local mini-grids are essential for a just transition.
2.  Secure affordable and just climate finance. Our governments must demand debt cancellation, establish an African credit rating agency, and expand access to long-term, concessional finance for energy infrastructure and green manufacturing.
3.  Protect national policy space by auditing and reforming outdated bilateral investment treaties and trade agreements. We urge you to resist legal frameworks that lock countries into extractive dependency and weaken their right to regulate in the public interest.
4.  Establish permanent regional mechanisms for strategic coordination, including a SADC Trade and Investment Negotiators Working Group and a Trade Integration Acceleration Plan aligned with AfCFTA goals. These institutions would help harmonise investment incentives, prevent a race to the bottom, and support joint negotiation positions with global partners.
5.  Operationalise a Green Industrialisation Index as a regional tool to measure progress, drive accountability, and guide alignment in industrial, energy, and trade policies. This must go beyond GDP and measure what truly matters: equity, sustainability, and shared prosperity.
6.  Build institutional infrastructure for transparency and planning by developing a unified regional geological data and investment portal, and by adopting a regional Just Transition Investment Code that embeds social, climate, and labour standards into all cross-border investments.
7.  Above all, the transition must deliver for our people. Strong social safeguards, meaningful community participation, gender equity, and public oversight mechanisms must be built into all mineral and energy investments. Our communities must not be treated as collateral damage in the rush to build green economies elsewhere. They must be at the centre of decision-making and benefit-sharing.

We urge you, SADC leaders, to embrace this practical path forward, knowing that regional cooperation is a strategic necessity. The path to sovereignty, development, and climate justice lies in deliberate, coordinated action.

Civil society across the region is ready to support your leadership in building a just, people-centred green transition. You hold the power to break with centuries of extraction and dependency and instead lead a shift towards regional solidarity, value creation, and public benefit. We call on you to rise to this moment to deliver on a future that honours the people, the potential, and the promise of Southern Africa

Signatory Organisations