Beyond the Ore: India’s Value-driven Critical Minerals Diplomacy in Africa

Executive Summary

As global demand for critical, green or transition minerals accelerates, India is working to secure supplies to meet its industrial and energy transition goals. With over 30% of global reserves of these located in Africa, countries on the continent are central to New Delhi’s effort.

This paper explores how India can deepen its engagement across Africa’s critical minerals ecosystems by moving beyond transactional trade and concessional finance towards embedded partnerships grounded in institutional capacity building, technology transfer and shared value creation. Building on an earlier study, it identifies three practical entry points for India in an increasingly competitive geopolitical landscape. These include critical mineral workforce development, sustainable and responsible mining practices, and knowledge networks for mineral mapping, surveying, and geological collaboration.

However, the move from ambition to implementation is constrained by shared institutional and structural challenges. Massive infrastructure deficits, regulatory and policy uncertainty across various African mining jurisdictions, and intense geopolitical competition complicate long-term planning. Indian institutions and companies face operational and technical hurdles as they expand into new markets and expose mineral supply chains to disruption. To anchor India’s mineral diplomacy in stable, long-term, and substantive partnerships, addressing these factors will be key.

Scope of the Study and Focus

This paper focuses on Zambia, Zimbabwe, and Tanzania, chosen for their existing engagement with India, their mineral endowments, and their relevance to global supply chains. While the themes explored have been matched to a particular country, they will also find resonance in other mineral-producing geographies.

The paper shifts the focus from identifying ‘where’ India should engage to examining ‘how’ such engagements can be operationalised through targeted policy instruments. The potential of joint geological surveying and knowledge networks in Zambia, the commercial logic for responsible mining practices in Zimbabwe, and opportunities for workforce development in Tanzania are analysed in depth. In doing so, the paper shows how India’s ambitions in critical minerals are being translated, or constrained, by operational realities on the ground, with important implications for India’s future role in global critical mineral supply chains.

These country-theme case studies not only underscore India’s bilateral outreach but also serve as diagnostic tools to assess the strengths and weaknesses of its engagement in practice. With diverse regulatory environments and domestic political economies, along with the rise of resource nationalism across Africa, balancing India’s commercial interests with the development priorities of the partner countries will require nimble policymaking, leveraging New Delhi’s strengths.

The three case studies explored in the paper are as follows:

Zambia: Where and How Much? Resource Mapping as a Foundation for Copper Cooperation.
Zimbabwe: How to Mine Right and Why it Pays? Sustainability as a Strategy in Lithium Diplomacy.
Tanzania: Can Knowledge Power Value Chains? Capacity as the Cornerstone of Critical Mineral Cooperation.

Policy Pathways

In Zambia, India’s focus could be on enhancing technical cooperation in geological mapping and early-stage exploration. Existing agreements, including the India–Zambia Technology Transfer Programme and the Joint Permanent Commission framework, provide a platform for operationalising Memoranda of Understanding (MoUs) and advancing concrete projects.

• To improve transparency, resource quantification, and investment certainty, co-developing digital mineral data repositories and facilitating technical exchanges between Indian and Zambian scientists could be undertaken.
• Cooperation can focus on strengthening Zambia’s geoscientific infrastructure. A blueprint for a joint innovation hub for mineral-focused collaborations already exists with the Indo-Zambia bank, which is co-owned by the Zambian government (40%) and Indian state-owned banks (60%).

In Zimbabwe, Indian actors could accrue credibility by making responsible mining overseas a central tenet of their operations.

• In addition to aligning operations with global environmental, social and governance (ESG) standards, an India–Zimbabwe Sustainability Charter could be developed. This could establish benchmarks for the Indian industry, with incentives for working closely with local civil society organisations.
• Introducing pilot projects in low-emission mining technologies, mine-site rehabilitation, and setting up clean recycling or value-added processing near mining sites, which provides training for local communities, could further enhance the accountability of Indian firms.

Central to Tanzania’s Vision 2030 strategy is the goal of boosting productivity and local value addition in the mining sector. Given Dodoma’s long-standing educational and technical ties with New Delhi, India could play a substantive role in a core component of this aspiration—workforce development.

• The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras, which hosts the first overseas campus in Zanzibar, could be positioned as a regional hub for mineral education.
• Partnerships with local technical institutions could incorporate industry-linked internships and exchange programmes with national metallurgical labs in India.

The findings presented in this paper draw on extensive literature reviews, stakeholder consultations, dialogues, and workshops conducted across geographies. The evidence was triangulated to examine how India can enhance its credibility as a responsible actor in Africa’s critical mineral supply chains.

In an increasingly complex global architecture, positioning India as a ‘viable alternative’ would require identifying the unique value proposition it offers to host countries. This paper argues that by leveraging its developmental diplomacy, private sector dynamism, and capacity to craft innovative models of cooperation, New Delhi can disrupt traditional narratives of resource extraction. The objective should be to grow into a competitive, reliable partner that not only secures supply chains but also actively shapes the future of mineral governance and green industrialisation across the region.