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Extraction of mineral resources has risen markedly in recent decades and will continue to grow to serve the needs of a growing, more affluent and increasingly urban population. Greater resource efficiency and circularity need to be prioritized around the globe to reduce demand for virgin materials, as current trends of resource extraction and processing cause environmental impacts that would exceed the planetary boundaries (GRO 2019). Especially high-income countries must strive for absolute decoupling of virgin resource use from economic growth. Developing countries need to relatively decouple growth from resource use, but will continue to grow demand for virgin resources to develop their basic infrastructure. Therefore, despite decoupling, resource extraction will continue to grow until necessary infrastructures are in place and resource circularity is effective globally. The global transition towards clean energy production will accentuate this pattern as renewable energy sources require much greater amounts of metals, both of the common and rare types, than energy production from fossil fuels.

The future demand outlook for metals and minerals presents notable opportunities for countries endowed with these resources to harness their extractive wealth to advance economic development and human well-being. Nonetheless, for a majority of resource-rich developing countries, mining, oil or gas exploitation has not translated into broad-based economic, human and social development. This is partly owing to the ‘enclave’nature of the extractive industry, with few links to the local economy, in most of the developing world. Moreover, the …