Mining for the Energy Transition - Securing a sustainable supply of critical minerals for advancing regional development

The mining sector plays a critical role in the global energy transition by providing the minerals and metals required by clean energy technologies, leading to a new surge in mining activities in Latin America and the Caribbean, home to some of the world’s largest reserves of copper, lithium, rare earth elements, aluminum, nickel, iron ore, zinc, and many others.

Although mining is a major driver of economic growth and employment for many Latin American and Caribbean countries, these activities have also been associated with environmental and social challenges, often exacerbated by inadequate regulatory frameworks, weak institutional capacity, infrastructure gaps, poor leveraging of local value chains, and insufficient investment in environmental and social management.

This IDB-led project enables mineral-rich countries in Latin America to foster enabling conditions for responsible investments to develop critical minerals and their value chains and addressing environmental and social concerns by focusing on four areas:

• strengthening sector governance and socioenvironmental standards compliance;
• amplifying geological knowledge through technological innovation to improve policymaking and encourage sustainable investment;
• building a portfolio of low-carbon and technological solutions that support sustainable mining extraction and production practices while reducing emissions and increasing productivity and resource efficiency;
• enhancing local development and infrastructure services to maximize benefits, while strengthening value chains and synergies with other productive sectors.

The project directly contributes to the national mining strategies of beneficiary countries and fits within the priorities of the EU Global Gateway strategy, which seeks to establish “sustainable connections that help to tackle the most pressing global challenges, including the need to boost competitiveness and security of global supply chains.” It also supports the implementation of the Memorandums of Understanding established between the EU and Argentina and Chile on sustainable raw materials value chains for the energy transition.