[Video message]
Distinguished delegates,
Welcome to the 22nd Annual General Meeting of the IGF, hosted by UN Trade and Development alongside the IGF Secretariat and our partners at IISD. This Forum exists because of a simple truth: mineral wealth, managed well, can transform economies; managed poorly, it deepens inequality. With over 80 member governments, the IGF is the principal space where producing and consuming countries tackle that challenge together.
The theme of this year’s meeting – trust in an interdependent world – could not be more timely. The clean energy technology market reached 1.2 trillion dollars in 2025, growing 20% a year. Demand for critical minerals is surging. For mineral-rich developing countries, this is a historic opportunity. Yet the value-capture gap remains stark: Africa accounts for 12% of global mineral exports but captures only 4% of the value embedded in green supply chains. Workers and communities bear the costs of extraction; the returns from processing and manufacturing flow elsewhere.
The IEA projects no major diversification of mineral supply chains before 2030. Closing that gap takes concrete tools. Here at UN Trade and Development, we work directly with mineral-rich countries to map their most realistic diversification pathways – using economic complexity analysis to identify which higher-value activities their existing capabilities can support. We have started this work in Madagascar, Namibia, and Zambia. And we co-lead the UN Task Force on Critical Energy Transition Minerals, advancing traceability, benefit-sharing, and value addition.
But tools are only as powerful as the governance frameworks that put them to work. That is where this Forum comes in.
Excellencies, over the next three days you will take on some of the hardest questions in mineral governance: how to share benefits equitably between companies and communities; how to translate critical minerals strategies into concrete, actionable policies; how to build strategic agreements that serve producing and consuming countries alike.
The countries and communities that depend on mineral wealth cannot afford governance that lags behind the market. If this Forum can turn its deliberations into frameworks that producing and consuming countries alike trust enough to sign on to, it will have done a great service to the world and provided something the energy transition urgently needs.
I wish you a productive Forum. I thank you.