WOMEN AND SKILLS POSITIONED AT THE HEART OF AFRICA’S MINING FUTURE

Africa’s mineral wealth is once again at the centre of global competition, Dr Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, Chancellor of the University of Johannesburg, said in a forthright address at the recent Mining Skills Lekgotla held at the Gallagher Convention Centre in Midrand. Focusing on opportunities for women in mining and the future of transformation in the sector, her message moved beyond representation to a call for capability, strategic positioning, and continental self-determination. Mlambo-Ngcuka emphasised that the pathway to meaningful transformation in mining begins and ends with skills.

Addressing the leadership of the Mining Qualifications Authority (MQA) as it marked its 30th anniversary, along with industry stakeholders, she reflected on her longstanding association with the institution as former Minister of Minerals and Energy. She commended the MQA for maintaining focus on its mandate to equip South Africans with the skills required to participate meaningfully in the mining economy. She cautioned that the country cannot afford to lose the struggle to build a capable, technically proficient workforce. Her remarks placed mining within a rapidly shifting global context shaped by climate change, the energy transition, technological disruption, and geopolitical instability.

Africa’s Strategic Position and the Push for Value

The minerals produced in Africa are essential to clean energy systems, battery technologies, and advanced manufacturing. She warned of the growing risk of what she described as mineral colonisation—a renewed scramble for Africa’s resources driven by intensifying global competition.

With Africa holding approximately 48% of global cobalt reserves, alongside significant deposits of manganese and copper including around 12% of global copper concentrated in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Zambia the continent occupies a strategic position in the global economy. She stressed the need for coordinated policy approaches across African states to avoid fragmentation that weakens collective bargaining power.

“However, mineral abundance has not translated into shared prosperity. Poverty persists across much of the continent, and women disproportionately bear its burden. This disconnect underscores the urgency of placing skilled African women at the centre of the mining value chain,” said Mlambo-Ngcuka.

She challenged young women to see themselves in every dimension of the sector, including ownership, engineering, finance, law, policy, and environmental management. Mining, she stressed, requires strong engineers, financially literate leaders, legal experts, and policy specialists who understand both domestic regulation and international trade. Transformation must be grounded in technical competence. She added that Africa must move beyond extraction toward beneficiation and downstream manufacturing to capture greater value and create sustainable employment.

Responsibility, Leadership and the Next Generation

Women, she said, should not be confined to peripheral roles but must take part in shaping and running mining operations. While acknowledging progress in safety standards, she stressed that vigilance must remain uncompromising. Environmental stewardship must also be treated as a core competency. Post-mining wastelands and polluted communities reflect failures in governance and technical planning. Skills in environmental protection and rehabilitation, she argued, are central to maintaining mining’s social licence to operate.

Mlambo-Ngcuka also appealed to younger audiences, noting that mining remains foundational to modern life, as everything we consume is either mined or planted. She urged students to use their time strategically, acquire skills aligned with future industry needs, and raise the standard of leadership and innovation.

“If Africa is to avoid repeating the patterns of its past, where vast mineral wealth coexisted with poverty and limited local beneficiation, it will do so not through rhetoric, but through a generation of highly skilled women and men prepared to shape the mining industry on their own terms,” she said.