The predominant economic model underpinning natural resources in Africa is unfair. It continues to reproduce a pattern where value is generated but not equitably distributed between local communities and businesses. This has been the case in the extractive sector that capitalises on abundant resources on the continent, as well as in the deployment of renewable energy projects to meet the rising energy demand, and the agribusiness sector that significantly meets the raw material needs for global supply chains.

Recent examples of human rights issues in the extraction of transition minerals illustrate this injustice. The Business and Human Rights Centre (BHRC), through the Transition Minerals Tracker (TMT), has been monitoring the human rights risks linked to the mining of minerals essential for powering the global energy transition. In 2025, allegations of abuse in Africa were linked to cobalt and copper mines in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), copper sites in Zambia, lithium mining in Zimbabwe, and manganese in South Africa, among others. It revealed human rights concerns impacting workers and local communities, including poor working conditions, forcible displacement, environmental degradation and loss of livelihoods.

In essence, the current model externalises social and environmental costs to local communities, while concentrating economic gains elsewhere, demonstrating that, without meaningful implementation of safeguards and equitable benefit-sharing models, the energy transition risks replicating the inequities of past extractive regimes. A transition to an economic model that delivers shared prosperity for all must include meaningful benefit-sharing for communities and workers on the frontlines of natural resource use.

Current mechanisms and shortcomings

To critically examine whether such benefit sharing mechanisms are meaningful to local communities, BHRC and INSPIRE co-hosted a workshop on the sidelines of the Alternative Mining Indaba (AMI) 2026 themed ‘Power to the People: Owning Africa's Energy future’. It brought together governments, companies, civil society, community representatives and regional experts to explore solutions that ensure a break from historical extractive models and foster human rights, shared prosperity and accountability in agriculture, mining and the green energy transition. The discussion created a rare space to bridge perspectives across the value chain, focusing not only on policy commitments, but also on lived realities. Participants referred to a recent BHRC study examining legislative frameworks for benefit-sharing across Tanzania, Kenya, South Africa, Ghana, Zambia and Sierra Leone, that identified four principal mechanisms: fiscal redistribution, Community Development Agreements (CDAs), local content and employment provisions, and community trusts or funds - each with clear potential, but significant limitations in practice.

Through strategic partnerships and investment in projects across Africa, the EU seeks to strengthen supply chains for minerals essential to renewable energy technologies and industrial decarbonisation. However, participants raised concerns about weak accountability mechanisms and unequal power relations, which risk reproducing historical extractive injustices if meaningful safeguards are not implemented. Although the EU repeatedly affirmed commitments to human rights, transparency, benefit-sharing and community engagement, civil society actors highlighted the persistent gap between policy commitments and implementation in practice. Concerns were raised about whether communities have the power, information, resources and institutional support necessary to participate meaningfully in decisions affecting their land and futures.

A central takeaway was clear: while many African countries have frameworks recognising human rights, environmental protection and benefit-sharing, the real challenge lies in implementation.

Participants underscored persistent gaps between law and practice, particularly in ensuring that communities meaningfully participate in decisions, share in the benefits and are protected from harm, highlighting the urgency of moving from commitments on paper to accountability in practice.

The core challenge lies not in the absence of frameworks, but in their weak design and implementation. Communities are often engaged too late or superficially, with limited adherence to free, prior and informed consent, resulting in outcomes that do not reflect their priorities. At the same time, weak transparency around revenue flows and agreements creates space for elite capture and undermines accountability. Benefit-sharing remains largely confined to the project level, excluding downstream actors such as traders, refiners and buyers, thereby allowing value to be captured elsewhere while communities bear the social and environmental costs.

Moreover, these mechanisms are frequently treated as discretionary or CSR-type initiatives, rather than being embedded within human rights due diligence. This means they often fail to address the scale, scope and irremediability of impacts. Workers and vulnerable groups, including women and informal actors, are often excluded, reinforcing rather than reducing existing inequalities. As one participant would later state, “Our dream for the future is of a place where there are more progressive mineral rights in place, so communities actually do own and benefit from the minerals underneath their feet.”

Policy recommendations for governments and companies 

A just energy transition in Africa will ultimately be judged not by the volume of minerals extracted, the number of renewable projects installed, or the acreage of land under cultivation, but by whether it delivers tangible and equitable benefits to the communities on whose land these resources are found. There is an urgent need to break decisively from this legacy model by embedding benefit-sharing within enforceable, rights-based governance systems and extending accountability across the entire value chain.

This requires coordinated action: governments must lead through regulation, oversight and aligned economic policies, while corporations must integrate benefit-sharing as a core element of due diligence and risk management. If effectively operationalised, natural resource use can catalyse shared prosperity and sustainable development; if not, the transition risks entrenching the very inequalities it seeks to address.

Cover image: Shutterstock (licensed)