South Africa says Africa must shape rules for critical minerals and artificial intelligence

Ronald Ozie Lamola told the Assembly that Africa’s reserves of critical minerals create an opportunity to "bridge the gap between wealth and poor nations" if countries can capture more value from extraction and processing. He urged that African countries must have a stake in shaping the rules that govern development and deployment of artificial intelligence.

Lamola emphasized youth employment and technological innovation as priorities, saying Africa has a "youthful population ready to play a key role in the beneficiation at source of critical minerals and research and innovations for artificial intelligence." He linked fair participation in AI rule-making and mineral value chains to broader development objectives.