According to a new report from NGO Monitor, a narrowly controlled group of NGOs exerts outsize influence on the activities of Western companies in Africa and the resulting dominance of China and Russia in critical mineral markets posing great risk to global supply chains and Western security interests.
The NGO Monitor report says that the activism by these NGOs “has led to the capture of regulatory processes by a narrow group of like-minded and similarly funded NGOs; lack of transparency; and NGO dependency on donor funding, which can skew priorities toward external agendas rather than local needs.” The primary funders of these NGOs include George Soros’ Open Society Foundations, the Ford Foundation, and a few others.
These NGOs, whose role in Africa’s extractive sector have become central, have also faced accusations of selective advocacy. They have given insufficient attention to the growing roles of non-accountable, authoritarian actors like China and Russia, whose state-owned enterprises have become dominant players in Africa’s mining industries, with little if any scrutiny from regulatory frameworks.
NGO Monitor legal advisor Anne Herzberg said, “The West risks becoming dependent on China and Russia for commercial and defense supply chains because they have ceded their influence in Africa’s extractive mining industry in the name of human rights and environmental protection.”
The dominance of these NGOs in the extractive sector has led to a “monopoly of thought,” where their narratives and priorities overshadow diverse perspectives, particularly those of local communities and governments. This has created an imbalance in policy discourse, with international NGOs often shaping the agenda to align with donor-driven priorities rather than grassroots realities.
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Herzberg added, “This dependence also ironically weakens human rights and environmental protection, the very policies NGO advocacy has sought to promote. In order to safeguard global supply chains as well as improve development and good governance, necessary reforms must be implemented.” Addressing these challenges is critical to ensuring that Africa’s resource wealth becomes a foundation for sustainable and inclusive development rather than a driver of inequality and conflict.
Over the past 20 years, China has established a dominant presence in the African market across multiple sectors, such that by 2022 trade between China and African nations was approaching US$300 billion – nearly three times the trade volume between African nations and the U.S. Chinese mining and battery companies have invested $4.5 billion in lithium mines, largely in Namibia, Zimbabwe, and Mali.
The Chinese footprint in Africa, however, is strongest in unstable regions with weak governance – likely making true reforms in those areas more difficult. Their extractive practices are loudly criticized, sometimes thwarted, for their negative impacts on human rights, poor labor conditions, and lack of concern for environmental impacts.
The war-caused disruptions to Russia’s traditional exports played a pivotal role in Putin’s push toward West Africa, via the Africa Corps (formerly the Wagner Group), which has provided assistance to insurgents in exchange for access to valuable resources, primarily gold. The Russians have hauled away some $2.5 billion worth of gold from war-torn nations like Burkina Faso, Mali, and the Central African Republic, much of which may have been shipped from Sudan, bypassing export channels.
The role of International NGOs often looks good on the surface, but while they often address unethical mining practices and environmental concerns, they frequently marginalize local voices and perspectives (a holdover from the original colonial era). The NGO Monitor report found that community leaders, regional governments, and domestic NGOs find their own priorities and concerns inadequately represented in major policy discussions and initiatives.
Well-funded (non-African) INGOs typically set and dominate the advocacy agenda at the UN, the OECD, and in European and American parliaments whose members are far removed from Africa, while African voices, and their own priorities, are often not even heard. Worse, the INGOs even take credit for the successes of Africa-based NGOs while shifting blame for their own failures to the Africans – in both cases, showing a lack of respect for those directly affected by the policies they demand.
To address this crowded and often counterproductive advocacy landscape and optimize the potential for meaningful change, the NGO Monitor report made four recommendations. The first is to promote pluralism in extractive sector policy discourse to reduce the influence of compromised NGOs in policy discussions within local governments as well as in regional and international institutions – the UN, the EU, and the OECD.
Secondly, the report urges all stakeholders – NGOs, governments, and corporations -- to strengthen transparency and accountability mechanisms by publishing detailed reports on their funding sources, advocacy priorities, and financial transactions. An obvious option is to expand the role of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative.
EITI promotes understanding of natural resource management, strengthening of public and corporate governance and accountability, and providing data to inform policymaking and multi-stakeholder dialogue in the extractive sector. It adheres to the principle that a nation’s natural resources belong first to its citizens – and thus that extraction of those resources that does not benefit the citizenry is inherently unethical.
A third recommendation is that NGOs broaden their focus to include all influential actors, especially paying attention to the state-owned companies of major players like China and Russia. Whether historically biased NGOs can, or are even willing to, become more inclusive remains to be seen.
Perhaps most of all, though, NGO Monitor says that African governments must strengthen and enforce their own legal frameworks in order to ensure sustainable and equitable resource governance.
Necessary steps include enhancing oversight mechanisms to identify and eliminate corruption and illicit practices and implementing equitable revenue-sharing systems that support economic development, benefit local communities, respect human rights (including those of young child laborers), and promote environmental protection in resource extraction activities.
By addressing these recommendations, Africa’s extractive industry can transition from a source of conflict and exploitation to a driver of growth and sustainability. NGOs, in particular, as opposed to being vectors of controversy, have a unique opportunity to refine their strategies and strengthen their impact, ensuring that their interventions contribute to lasting and meaningful change.
Duggan Flanakin is a senior policy analyst at the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow who writes on a wide variety of public policy issues.
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