The surge in demand for critical minerals is fuelling geopolitical competition and affecting global supply chains.
That was the message delivered by a Senior United Nations (UN) Secretariat official Rosemary Dicarlo, during a meeting of the Security Council on “Energy, critical minerals and security”.
The meeting is aiming to explore the link between energy dominance and competition for natural resources and the implications of that on the maintenance of international peace and security.
The Council is currently being chaired by the United States, that highlighted the urgency of securing critical mineral supply chains as a matter of national security last November.
The UN reiterated the view that critical minerals were among the man drivers of the 21st century economy, critical in the manufacture of smartphones, electric vehicles, artificial intelligence, robotics and the list goes on .
This is with the trade in raw and semi-processed minerals reaching approximately $2.5 trillion in 2023 alone, one tenth of global trade.
The need for multilateral and regional action to strengthen governance and improve the traceability of minerals to curb illicit flows and the necessity to deploy peace-making instruments to mitigate and resolve natural resource disputes.
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