No Sustainable Future without Minerals: Integrating Minerals in the Next Global Development Agenda

By Christopher Burke

 

As the deadline for the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development approaches, minerals remain a critical blind spot in global policy. Sand and cement are amongst the most common minerals that literally and figuratively provide the foundations for shelter, mobility, energy and human well-being, but are completely absent from the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and their 169 targets.

When the SDGs were adopted in 2015, the emphasis was on water, forests and biodiversity, food, energy and climate. Mining and the supply of minerals received no explicit recognition. This omission suggests bias. Minerals and the extractive sector are often framed in terms of environmental harm, governance challenges and social disruption not as foundations for development.

Daniel Franks and his colleagues Julia Keenan and Degol Hailu at the University of Queensland’s Sustainable Minerals Institute explain that “minerals are essential ingredients of the Sustainable Development Goals, but mining, mineral and miner are omitted from the description of the original Sustainable Development Goals.” Millions of people depend on the minerals sector for their livelihoods. The informal and artisanal mining sector alone employs tens of millions across the developing world. The absence of minerals in the SDGs reflects a degree of stigma and neglect. Not irrelevance.

Minerals are the silent enablers of every SDG.

From the concrete that builds affordable housing to the copper and cobalt that drive the energy transition, minerals underpin nearly every aspect of modern life. Development minerals comprising non-fuel, non-precious materials such as sand, clay, limestone and gypsum used in construction, agriculture and manufacturing are embedded in everyday human activity and progress. This is where the concepts of mineral security and mineral poverty become essential.

Mineral security refers to the condition in which all people have sufficient and affordable access to the minerals necessary for human development. In contrast, mineral poverty describes the deprivation that results when such access is lacking. These ideas bring minerals into the same conceptual space as food security and energy access, framing them as fundamental to human well-being.

Clean energy systems depend on copper, lithium, nickel and rare earths for renewable technologies. Sustainable cities require aggregates, cement and other minerals to build resilient infrastructure. Agriculture relies on rock-based fertilizers and micronutrient minerals that replenish soils, while industrial production depends almost entirely on mineral inputs to sustain innovation and manufacturing.

The SDGs currently have no metric for access to minerals or for mineral security. This omission weakens the framework’s ability to recognize the material foundations of progress. Without mineral security, efforts to achieve goals linked to housing, transport, clean energy and rural infrastructure will hit physical and economic limits. Recognizing minerals as a developmental necessity beyond extractive risk is essential to align sustainability with reality.

The January 2025 United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN DESA) report “Harnessing the Potential of Critical Minerals for Sustainable Development” underscores this urgency. The world’s energy-transition ambitions will require an enormous ramp-up in mineral supply, placing developing countries rich in resources at the cusp of opportunity and risk.

Three fundamental shifts are required to ensure minerals are appropriately mainstreamed in the next SDG cycle (post-2030). The first is to reframe the narrative. Minerals must not only be presented as potential risks associated with pollution, conflict and disruption; but as enablers of development. Policymakers, civil society and international institutions should recognize minerals as integral to human rights: the right to housing, the right to mobility and the right to clean energy. Elevating the concept of development minerals comprising sand, clay and gypsum
helps move beyond the narrow focus on conflict minerals or extractive abuse. Public and
academic campaigns could highlight how thousands of small-scale miners contribute to local
livelihoods and infrastructure.

The second shift involves the institutionalization of cooperation and measurement. There is currently no dedicated global institution for minerals comparable to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) for food or UN-Water for water. A global minerals platform could facilitate data-sharing, mining governance standards, artisanal-scale formalization and recycling. The 2023 UN Energy Policy Brief on Critical Raw Materials calls for an SDG risk index for minerals, coordinated by institutions including the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and
the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). The indicator framework for the next SDG cycle should include metrics on “mineral access” or “mineral security” so that countries can report on their ability to secure mineral inputs for infrastructure, manufacturing and energy.

Finally, mineral security needs to be embedded in national policy. Voluntary National Reviews (VNRs) should require countries to address mineral-access dimensions of sustainable development such as how small-scale mining contributes to decent work (SDG 8) or how infrastructure-mineral supply chains link to climate goals. The UN DESA report stresses that mineral-rich developing countries must avoid the traditional “resource curse” through value addition, beneficiation and sustainable linkages. Governments could consider ways to tie climate finance, infrastructure programmes and industrial policy to responsible mineral value chains and community benefit-sharing, particularly for artisanal and small-scale mining communities.

Blessed with mineral abundance yet constrained by infrastructure gaps and limited local processing–the next SDG agenda represents an opportunity for Africa. Positioned around mineral security, local beneficiation and the circular economy, the continent can shift from raw extraction to sustainable development. The UN DESA report notes that mining accounts for over 15 percent of GDP in some developing economies and over 30 percent of fiscal revenue in
others presenting meaningful levers for SDG-related public expenditure.

Continental frameworks such as the African Minerals Development Centre (AMDC) and the African Union’s African Mining Vision (AMV) must align with the next global goals. This alignment will ensure minerals play a constructive role in industrialisation, infrastructure, jobs and climate mitigation.

The world’s future depends not only on whether and how people have access to water, energy and food, but on how they can obtain the materials needed to build a dignified life. The next generation of SDGs should not only measure human outcomes, but the material inputs that make them possible. Placing minerals squarely within the global development framework through explicit recognition of mineral security, institutional measurement and strong national policy can help ensure that the post-2030 agenda is grounded in material reality.

Without mineral security, the SDGs rest on sand. It’s time to build on bedrock.

 

 

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Christopher Burke is a senior advisor at WMC Africa, a communications and advisory agency located in Kampala, Uganda. With over 30 years of experience, he has worked extensively on social, political and economic development issues focused on extractives, governance, environment issues, policy formulation, communications, advocacy, conflict transformation, international relations and peace-building in Asia and Africa.