The Web3 Era

6Back to Africa

The irony with the world today is that the richest nations aren't always the ones with the most resources while the poorest nations have untapped wealth beyond their imaginations.

With vast swabs of land and ocean left undiscovered, Africa holds 30% of the world's minerals, including 40% of the world's gold, 90% of the world's chromium and platinum, 8% of natural gas, and 12% of oil reserves of the world, in addition to holding the largest reserves of cobalt (a key metal for batteries and smartphones), diamonds, and uranium on the earth, and enormous concentrations of tantalum, iron, titanium, zinc, copper, gypsum, salt, sulfur, and phosphates.

In 2019 alone, 1 billion tons of minerals worth US$406 billion were reportedly produced by the continent, or 5.5% of the world's produced minerals.

That same year, other parts of the world produced way more than what Africa put out, with Asia producing 9.1 billion tons of minerals, North America producing 3.1 billion tons, and Europe producing 2.72 billion tons. Developed nations are depleting their natural resources at an alarming rate as Africa supports their energy needs, but due to its low consumption, Africa still has a long way to go before its tank runs dry, while some developed nations are already on the brink of depleting their natural resources.

Source: Statista / https://www.statista.com/chart/26371/african-countries-with-the-highest-gdp-over-time/ ...