UN General Assembly
2019

The Democratic Republic of the Congo today holds about 70 per cent of the world’s reserves of strategic metals, which are essential to achieving the energy and digital transition that humankind needs. Rather than using those natural mineral reserves as a source of monopolistic income, my country intends to open itself up to the world by allowing the regulated exploitation of its subsoil in exchange for support for industrialization and the production of batteries and higher value-added components. While the world has a thirst for cobalt, coltan and lithium, we in the Democratic Republic of the Congo have a need for industrial jobs, training and development. My country also has 53 per cent of Africa’s freshwater reserves. The sustainable management of that potential will one day help to quench the thirst of one quarter of the planet’s inhabitants.