By Sharyn Macnamara
We begin 2025 in eager anticipation of the Investing in African Mining Indaba with its theme of “Future-proofing African Mining, today!” What a good place to begin considering the latest UN Sustainable Development Goals Report 2024.
Sharyn Macnamara, African Mining editor. © African Mining, incorporating Mining Mirror
Global reality hits hard
The report states that “only 17% of the SDG targets are on track, nearly half are showing minimal or moderate progress, and progress on over one third has stalled or even regressed.” Li Junhua Under- Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs explains that progress has been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic aftermath, geopolitical tensions and conflicts, and escalating climate crisis.
Furthermore, “systemic deficiencies and inequities in the global economic and financial system leave developing countries to tackle enormous and growing challenges with only a fraction of the international support they need and deserve. Inequalities keep growing. The climate crisis continues to escalate. Biodiversity loss is accelerating. Progress towards gender equality remains disappointing. And conflicts in Ukraine, Gaza, Sudan and beyond have left an unprecedented 120 million forcibly displaced people worldwide. This situation is not going to improve on its own: developing countries, as a whole, face the worst medium-term economic outlook in a generation.”1
It is not all doom and gloom, though. There have been some improvements with reductions in child mortality, HIV infections, and the cost of remittances and improvements in access to water, sanitation, energy and mobile broadband. The report calls on peace through greater international collaboration; fiscal resources through reform of outdated, dysfunctional and unfair international financial architecture to facilitate investment in the SDGs; action and implementation through partnerships; empowerment of women and girls and greater international cooperation to meet the “2030 promise to end poverty, protect the planet and leave no one behind”.
Africa’s time is now
What better opportunity than the biggest “get together” in African mining – the Investing in African Mining Indaba – to dig deep and unearth what Africa needs to deliver both the critical minerals the world needs to navigate climate change and to collaborate to meet the African SDGs and answer the call of its people – the communities that depend on a sustainable mining ecosystem.
In line with this thinking, African Mining, incorporating Mining Mirror’s customary January Indaba Outlook 2025 offers food for thought in preparation for the meeting of investors, miners and suppliers in the African mining sector. African Mining embraces the Mining Indaba theme on a number of levels through several opinion pieces contributed by stakeholders across the board. This includes services and products that help ensure long-term resilience and sustainability for the mining ecosystem and improve efficiencies in exploration, extraction and productivity, especially when it comes to critical minerals in Africa. Along with this, we offer innovative business thought leadership that is adapting and evolving to stay competitive with solutions and strategies that are reshaping traditional thinking, redefining operational processes and offering revolutionary opportunities for boosting competitiveness and driving ESG, sustainability and progress.
References:
- https://unstats.un.org/sdgs/report/2024/The-Sustainable-Development-Goals-Report-2024.pdf