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| Job Agba Opue, Ebenezer Bowale, Abang Barth Mbia and Brian Obue Eyang |
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| ''Critical minerals as geopolitical pivot: A strategic framework for west African beneficiation'' |
| ( 2026, Vol. 0 No.0 ) |
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| West Africa possesses over 40% of global bauxite reserves and emerging lithium, rare earth, and cobalt deposits essential for the green energy transition. This paper develops a dynamic bargaining model demonstrating how strategic forward contracts with OECD countries can finance domestic beneficiation while mitigating the resource curse. We prove that when resource nationalism takes the form of value-addition requirements rather than export restrictions, a Nash bargaining solution exists that Pareto-dominates both pure extraction and autarkic processing. The model predicts that West Africa can capture 35–45% of the value chain through strategic positioning as a processing hub, compared to 8–12% under raw export regimes. Policy simulations using ECOWAS mineral data suggest that coordinated regional beneficiation infrastructure could attract $12–18 billion in forward-contract financed investment by 2030. |
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| Keywords: critical minerals, resource nationalism, forward contracts, Nash bargaining, beneficiation, West Africa |
JEL: Q3 - Nonrenewable Resources and Conservation: General
O2 - Development Planning and Policy: General |
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| Manuscript Received : Feb 09 2026 | | Manuscript Accepted : Oct 10 2026 |
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