Lessons learnt from China's scramble for Zimbabwe's lithium reserves

Zimbabwe’s rich lithium reserves have sparked a foreign investment boom, particularly from China. While the government, eager to attract investments, helps foreign mining companies secure access to ‘the white gold’, artisanal miners are sidelined. A ban on unprocessed lithium exports, intended to boost domestic processing, has instead benefited political elites and marginalised local communities even further. To foster inclusive growth, the government should formalise artisanal mining and strengthen regional cooperation.

Grasian Mkodzongi, Senior Researcher, the Nordic Africa Institute

The global transition to low carbon economies has fuelled demand for so-called critical minerals (lithium, cobalt, nickel, graphite, manganese, copper and some rare earths). These minerals are ‘critical’ for the ongoing green transition of the global auto industry, and they are in high demand for energy storage systems, artificial intelligence data centres, wind turbines and defence industries. Across African countries, the growing demand for these minerals and metals has triggered conflict among artisanal miners, political elites and Chinese miners over the control of mineral-rich lands. In Zimbabwe, conflict over the control of lithium-rich lands has led to the violent eviction of artisanal miners, who had occupied lithium claims belonging to the government and private companies.

Zimbabwe holds the largest reserves of lithium in Africa and ranks fifth globally (although estimates do vary). The vast lithium deposits could serve as a basis for making Zimbabwe a key player in the production of lithium batteries and other products critical for a green transition to cleaner energy. More importantly, they could help Zimbabwe achieve its goal of becoming an upper-middle-income economy by 2030, as expressed in its Vision 2030 External link, opens in new window. and Transitional Stabilisation Programme 2018–2021 External link. (adopted by the government in 2018) and its National Development Strategy 2021–2025 External link, opens in new window. (adopted in 2021).

The government’s optimism over the country’s potential to industrialise on the back of its mineral wealth is not shared by the many Zimbabweans who have been excluded from participation in Zimbabwe’s nascent lithium-mining economy and evicted to make way for Chinese-owned companies.

The lithium rush and China’s investments

Lithium was discovered nearly a century ago, but it is only in the last few years – since the beginning of the 2020s – that ‘lithium fever’ has gripped the country. This fever has attracted lots of foreign-owned mining companies (especially from China), which have acquired many lithium claims across the country. Major Chinese investment in Zimbabwe’s lithium sector has led to the acquisition of the Arcadia lithium mine by Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt for USD 422 million and of the Bikita Lithium Mine by the Sinomine Resource Group for USD 180 million External link, opens in new window.. These acquisitions have been celebrated by the government, which sees them as the outcome of its efforts to attract foreign direct investment (FDI) under its ‘Zimbabwe is open for business mantra’.

This Chinese-dominated foreign investment in Zimbabwe’s lithium sector was followed by a rush for the ‘white gold’ (as lithium is sometimes known, on account of its high market value and silver colour). As a result, many lithium-rich lands were ‘invaded’ by artisanal and small-scale miners. This informal mining of lithium triggered conflict among a diverse group of people (artisanal miners, senior military officers, politically connected elites and the Chinese). In some places, the conflict led to violent eviction, supported by the government – as at the Sandawana mine, explored below.

The Sandawana mine dispute

Some of the lithium claim areas invaded by artisanal and small-scale miners were government owned – for example, the Sandawana mine, an abandoned gemstone mine in southern Zimbabwe. In recent years, the Sandawana mine was illegally occupied by artisanal miners, who started mining lithium and selling it on to Chinese middlemen, who in turn exported it to China. A similar conflict emerged when artisanal miners occupied a privately owned lithium claim area in Goromonzi, a rural area close to Zimbabwe’s capital Harare. The artisanal miners were later evicted after the area was cordoned off and shut down by Zimbabwe’s Environmental Management Agency. The lithium rush at the Sandawana mine demonstrates the challenges of resource-driven economic development, both in Zimbabwe and in African countries more generally. The government often justifies the eviction of locals in favour of foreign mining companies on the basis of promoting FDI. As a result, commodity booms seldom encourage local economic development, since they can trigger conflicts and resource thefts, rather than empower local people.

As just noted, the lithium rush triggered conflict, which led to the eviction of local people from lithium-rich lands. In Sandawana, the evictions – which were filmed and did the rounds of social media – triggered widespread condemnation of the government. Those evicted accused it of stealing their ore and promoting the grabbing of lithium-rich lands by (mainly) Chinese investors, who now dominate lithium mining in the country. There have also been accusations that political elites with links to high-profile politicians in the ruling party sponsored the eviction of the artisanal miners, in order to allow their proxies to mine and export lithium ore, while denying unemployed youths access to the mineral-rich lands.

The haphazardly implemented export ban

In 2022, the government imposed a ban on the export of unprocessed lithium External link, opens in new window. to encourage local processing. However, the ban faced criticism for being selectively applied. Since 2023, a research project External link, opens in new window. led by the Tropical Africa-Land and Natural Resources Research Institute of Zimbabwe has been conducting interviews with artisanal miners in Mberengwa, the district where the Sandawana mine is situated. Hitherto unpublished data from this project suggest that political elites used the statutory ban on lithium exports to block ordinary Zimbabweans from participation in the lithium value chain. Through both this study and the mainstream media External link, opens in new window., locals have voiced their suspicion that Chinese miners paid bribes to politicians and government officials in order to continue exporting lithium during the ban.

One major impact of the lithium ban is that it disrupted a vibrant local economy that had grown up following by the influx of investors into the country in search of lithium mining assets. While the ban was justified on the grounds that it would encourage the local processing of minerals, its haphazard implementation disrupted the lithium mining sector and triggered losses among those who had invested in new mines. Moreover, the timing of the export ban – introduced in 2022 – was unfortunate. The global market price of lithium is very volatile, and the ban came just as the global market price soared to around ten times the figure of the previous few years (it has since fallen back again); and as most companies lacked the capacity to beneficiate lithium, Zimbabwe’s economy missed its chance to benefit from the high lithium prices on the global market.

Given Zimbabwe’s ongoing economic challenges, characterised by a high level of unemployment and currency instability, the ban affected thousands of youths and other unemployed people who had been making a living from lithium mining. Moreover, the ban cut locals off from lithium mining, in favour of Chinese-owned mining companies. To make matters worse, the subsequent dramatic slump in the global price of lithium carbonate post-2022 forced many Chinese miners, speculators and fortune seekers to abandon their mining operations and exit the country.

The destabilising politics of the ban

Zimbabwe has a long history of imposing bans on the mining and export of minerals across various mineral categories (chrome, diamonds and lithium). Current research External link, opens in new window. into artisanal gold mining shows how these controversial bans are often implemented after minimal consultation with the public and the broader stakeholders in the mining sector. As a result, the artisanal and small-scale miners have criticised the bans for biases and destabilising effect. The bans have also been condemned for marginalising ordinary people in favour of politically connected elites and their Chinese partners. Historically, banned minerals such as chrome, diamonds and (recently) lithium have continued to be exported by a minority of politically connected elites, while the artisanal and small-scale miners have been criminalised and excluded.

Many African countries, including Zimbabwe, have failed to formalise artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM), a vital source of jobs for unemployed youths and peasants. This reluctance has exacerbated the poverty in both urban slums and rural areas. Although formalisation of the ASM sector could help reduce unemployment and deprivation, the market-driven policies adopted in the 1990s have led to a preference for large-scale mining investors, even where laws and policies are in place to formalise the small-scale mining sector.

Resource-rich African countries often offer foreign-owned mining companies’ favourable treatment, in the hope that FDI will transform their economies. Yet the evidence on the ground External link, opens in new window. suggests that there is no direct link between large-scale mining and local economic development. Examples from Zimbabwe, Zambia, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Madagascar and many other African countries show that large-scale mining investments often fail to deliver on jobs and economic benefits for the local population. Indeed, across Africa the number of people employed in large-scale mining is negligible, compared to the small-scale mining sector. For example, unemployment and poverty remain high in the mineral-rich Copperbelt of Zambia and DRC, while copper and cobalt mining has created enclave economies, bringing minimal benefit to the local people.

Resource grabbing, bribes and evictions

As the demand for minerals grows in the drive toward the global energy transition, class conflicts over access to mineral-rich lands have become more intense. In a country like Zimbabwe – debt ridden and marginalised from the international financial markets – artisanal mining can offer a pathway to economic opportunities for unemployed youths. But their eviction from small-scale claims further worsens their precarious economic situation. The scramble for critical minerals in Zimbabwe, DRC, Zambia and Madagascar has perpetuated the incorporation of local communities into global capitalism, with all the attendant adverse consequences of that. While minerals are excavated and shipped to foreign markets, locals are evicted and suffer the environmental effects of mining. In consequence, those states have abandoned their post-colonial role of promoting broad-based development in favour of merely facilitating colonial-era land and resource grabs.

The persistent criminalisation of artisanal mining cross mineral-rich African countries (Zimbabwe, Zambia, South Africa, Ghana and DRC) highlights the way in which governments have promoted the marginalisation of local populations from accessing mineral wealth, in favour of global mining capital. This raises a question mark over the potential of the global energy transition to promote broad-based development and reindustrialisation in resource-rich but poor African countries. The preliminary findings of the afore-mentioned research project indicate that global mining capital, both Western and Chinese, has triggered land and resource grabbing, including the eviction of local populations from resource-rich lands, as the demand for critical minerals intensifies. Interviews with miners evicted in Goromonzi and Mberengwa indicate that the Chinese companies have tended to take over mining areas where the locals have been evicted. This has come about through the bribery of politicians and government officials to expedite the processing of mining permits and other official documentation required to take over a mine site. Within the framework of the above-mentioned research project External link, opens in new window. led by the Tropical Africa-Land and Natural Resources Research Institute, interviews with representatives of the Zimbabwe Miners Federation (which supports artisanal and small-scale miners) reveal how, during the lithium rush of 2021, Chinese miners were paying officials between USD 15,000 and USD 20,000 to gain access to lucrative lithium claims before the lithium export ban was imposed. Unpublished interviews from 2024 reveal those local miners believe the Chinese miners paid an estimated USD 60,000 ‘fee’ to a military-controlled company to facilitate the export of unprocessed lithium in the aftermath of the ban on lithium exports. The export ban thus became a rent-seeking scheme, which created a monopoly on lithium exports that favoured politically connected elites and the military. The ban also created a cumbersome bureaucratic system of permits which made it difficult for locals to acquire the paperwork required to export lithium during the ban. Thus, the Chinese were the only ones who could afford to export lithium, as only they had the financial resources to bribe officials. The same goes for the chromite sector, where only a few politically connected elites have the necessary permits to export chrome, while artisanal miners lack the political connections and financial resources to acquire the permits.

Lessons learnt from the Zimbabwe case

The contradictions highlighted in the Zimbabwe case explored in this policy note can be broadened out to other African countries where expectations of a windfall from mineral rents from the global energy transition abound. While many of these countries have adopted policy frameworks to exercise some level of state control over their mining sectors, including local mineral processing, the absence of industrial capacity to undertake the above militates against those ambitions.

A way out of the persistent export of unprocessed minerals would be through regional cooperation, based on implementation of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA). The memorandum of understanding between Zambia and DRC to produce battery precursors in a designated special economic zone is a good example of the importance of regional collaboration. The very low level of intra-Africa trade (only 16 per cent) undermines the ability of African countries to pool their resources and produce goods for local markets. As noted earlier, implementation of AfCFTA the most important piece of continental agreement – could improve the prospects for local mineral beneficiation and the manufacture of clean energy goods for the African market. The governments’ current bias in favour of FDI by foreign-owned large-scale mines does not promote local economic development.

The Zimbabwe case explored in this policy note demonstrates the importance of balancing the need to attract FDI in the critical minerals mining sector with the inclusion of locals in the mineral supply chains (rather than their marginalisation).

While it is important to promote local value addition for critical minerals, this should not be done without proper planning and consultation with the locals who might end up being excluded from mineral value chains.

Policy recommendations

• Ensure local inclusion. The global energy transition has the potential to transform the economies of resource-rich African countries; however, the scramble for critical minerals is contributing to land and resource grabs in favour of foreign-owned mining companies. The government should promote the inclusion of local enterprises in regional and global mining value chains. Evidence from Zimbabwe suggests that ASM can promote local economic development, which can then transform rural economies. This is especially the case with Zimbabwe’s gold-mining sector, where the ASM sector often produces more gold than the formal sector and thus contributes substantially to the national gold output.
• Learn from other cases. Many resource-rich countries across the globe – such as Indonesia, Bolivia, Chile and Argentina – have adopted policies to strengthen government control over the mining sector, including bans on the export of unprocessed minerals. African governments could benefit if they drew on the experience of these countries. However, these measures should not prevent local communities from participating in the mining value chain.
• Incorporate artisanal miners into the formal lithium supply chain. Before their eviction, artisanal miners were supplying lithium to Chinese buyers for export to China. Their eviction cut them off from the lithium supply chain and created unemployment. Incorporating the ASM sector into formal critical-mineral supply chains could offer a quicker way of addressing high levels of youth unemployment. In the absence of formal jobs, ASM’s low entry requirements make it an ideal pathway for addressing rural and urban unemployment.