Paris Peace Forum 2026 | 11-12 Nov.
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As the global race for transition minerals intensifies, a key question is emerging at the heart of international governance: how can high standards be upheld without fragmenting markets or leaving resource-rich countries behind?
On the sidelines of African Mining Indaba 2026, the Paris Peace Forum and its Global Council for Responsible Transition Minerals, alongside Sustainable Energy for All, convened an invitation-only high-level roundtable bringing together producing country representatives, G7 governments, industry leaders, and civil society organizations. The event took place against a backdrop of mounting geopolitical competition, export controls, and concentrated value chains — all of which are straining the pace and scale of minerals production needed for global decarbonization.
In 2025, G7 leaders adopted a Critical Minerals Action Plan and Roadmap to promote "standards-based markets" — a framework aimed at securing supply chains while raising the bar on responsible practices. While essential for transparency, sustainability, and resilience, this push risks creating a two-tier global system that could marginalise resource-rich countries, many of which are in Africa.
As Benjamin Gallezot, France's Interministerial Delegate for Strategic Minerals and Metals Supplies, noted: "Critical minerals will be one of the central themes of the French G7 this year. The importance of these resources for industrial development and the energy transition is undeniable — as are the growing geopolitical and trade constraints in this sector."
Africa, endowed with many of the minerals essential to the energy transition, sits at the centre of this shifting landscape. At a time when governments are expanding production, pursuing local processing, and aligning mining with national development strategies, market access requirements could sideline producers if not designed inclusively.
The roundtable built on the Global Council's recently published Position Paper, "Ensuring High Standards Without Fragmenting Markets", which outlines concrete pathways to reconcile rigorous standards with inclusive market access. Its key recommendations call for building on existing tools, avoiding the weaponisation of standards, engaging producer countries beyond the G7, fostering responsible industrialisation, and unlocking investment flows.
Discussions at the roundtable focused on four core objectives: testing and refining these recommendations with African stakeholders and investors; identifying the conditions for an inclusive design of standards-based markets; gathering concrete ideas for operationalising such markets through existing tools, financing mechanisms, and the role of development finance institutions; and preparing a structured message for the 2026 French G7 Presidency, for which transition minerals stand as one of the key priorities.
The outcomes of this dialogue will directly feed into the French G7 Presidency's agenda on transition minerals — a priority area at a moment when the governance of mineral supply chains is becoming inseparable from questions of climate, development, and geopolitical stability.
Read the Global Council's Position Paper: Ensuring High Standards Without Fragmenting Markets
