By: African mining market

The Africans for Africa Initiative () team successfully concluded a high-impact week at Mining Indaba 2026. As the continent’s premier mining investment gathering, the event served as the official first “outing” for the Africans for Africa Fund, a vehicle designed to position African capital and governance at the heart of natural resources development.

Throughout the week, the AFA team championed a new era of “Responsible Resource Investment,” moving beyond simple extraction toward long-term value creation and supply-chain resilience for African nations.

Key highlights of strategic partnerships engagements

AFA’s presence was marked by a series of high-level bilateral sessions with sovereign leaders and institutional giants.

• Republic of Kenya  AFA has been invited to lead the investment deal room during Kenya Mining Week in April 2026, supporting the nation’s ambitious rare earths strategy. 
• Kingdom of Saudi Arabia  In a move toward global supply-chain integration, AFA and the Saudi Arabia delegation agreed to explore co-investment partnership models focused on lithium, gold, and iron ore processing hubs.
• Republic of Zimbabwe (Mutapa Investment Fund): Established a strategic alignment for a co-investment model, ensuring domestic mining projects benefit from both sovereign support and AFA’s platform.
• Republic of Liberia: Engaged in discussions with the Liberian delegation led by the Honorable Minister to secure a high value gold project for the AFA coveted project pipeline while also supporting the nation on enhancing data generation.
• Institutional Outreach:Engaged with Empire Investment Bank, Westlake Capital, and DBSA et al to secure technical and financial partnerships for project development capital.

AFA Mining Indaba side event

AFA hosted a networking evening at the Cape Town Club, convening an invited audience of approximately 40-50 stakeholders spanning sovereign representatives from Nigeria, Liberia and the DRC, fund managers, and mining, oil and gas CEOs. The evening served as a clear platform to introduce the Africans for Africa Fund and to reinforce AFA’s “Responsible Resource Investment” agenda, anchored on stronger governance, diaspora capital mobilisation, and a curated, investor-grade project pipeline. Central to the discussion was AFA’s 51% benefit principle, positioning African nations and communities as primary beneficiaries of resource development through structured, transparent partnerships that reduce friction and manage “resource nationalism” risk. The programme featured contributions from the AFA management reinforcing AFA’s execution pathway from convening to deployment. Feedback and engagement from attendees validated both the proposition and the urgency, with multiple parties signalling appetite to partner on pipeline access, co-investment models and priority jurisdictions.

Association of Women in Mining Africa (AWIMA) Leadership Awards

AFA proudly served as a Silver Sponsor supporting the AWIMA Leadership Awards held during Mining Indaba. The support reflects AFA’s alignment with platforms that strengthen women’s leadership, entrepreneurship, and community impact across the mining value chain. Supporting AWIMA reinforces AFA’s Responsible Resource Investment agenda, ensuring that capital mobilisation, governance reform, and project development are matched by inclusive participation and institutional capacity building within the sector.

Strategic outcomes

Mining Indaba 2026 marked a defining moment for AFA, with strong institutional validation of its capital mobilisation and co-investment model. Across engagements with sovereigns, project sponsors, and international investors, there was broad recognition that visible African capital participation materially strengthens project credibility. Structured risk-sharing frameworks, particularly those integrating domestic and diaspora capital, were viewed as essential to enhancing bankability, reducing political friction, and signalling long-term alignment of interests.

A consistent theme throughout the week was the clear appetite among African institutions to participate more directly in the continent’s natural resource value chains. Stakeholders acknowledged that while capital exists within Africa, structural mechanisms to channel that capital into well-governed, investor-ready projects have been limited. AFA’s platform, anchored on curated pipelines, robust governance standards, and the 51% benefit principle, was received as a practical solution to bridge this gap and move beyond policy-level “local content” toward structured ownership and participation.

International partners emphasised the importance of stability, transparency, and predictable partnership frameworks. In this context, AFA’s model was seen as contributing to a reframing of resource nationalism into structured resource partnership integrating sovereign alignment, African capital, and global technical expertise from inception. This integrated approach enhances political durability, strengthens social licence, and mitigates lifecycle risk.

Overall, Mining Indaba 2026 confirmed that Africa’s resource development trajectory will increasingly favour models that embed shared capital commitment and governance alignment at the core of project structuring. The Africans for Africa Fund is positioned to operationalise this alignment advancing co-investment discussions initiated during the week and formalising partnerships that support long-term, inclusive resource development across priority jurisdictions.