Hope on Pause?: The Politics of New Lithium Mining in Ghana

As the global transition toward clean energy accelerates, demand for critical minerals such as lithium is reshaping political, economic and environmental dynamics across the Global South.

On Wednesday, June 10, 2026, at 10:30 AM in Salle Laâyoune, UM6P Benguerir, the Institute for Advanced Studies (IAS-UM6P), in collaboration with the UM6P Africa Initiative, will welcome Prof. Miles Larmer, Director of the Center for African Studies at the University of Florida, for a seminar examining the governance challenges and societal expectations surrounding Ghana’s emerging lithium industry.

Drawing on field research and interviews with policymakers, industry actors and local communities, this seminar will explore how questions of value creation, environmental stewardship and social beneficiation are influencing the future of lithium mining in Ghana and, more broadly, the politics of transition minerals in Africa.

Abstract:
New extractive production of “transition” minerals in the Global South provides novel political, social and environmental challenges to states and societies with historical experience of colonial extraction. Governance of Ghana’s emergent lithium mining industry builds on its history of gold mining and oil and gas production, but lithium’s central role in green energy production is generating new social and environmental claims and contestations focused on how to add value to lithium production.

This seminar examines the interplay between global, national and local political spaces shaping this governance, and explores how expectations for social beneficiation and industrial added value are unfolding in Ghana’s liberal democratic context. Drawing on interviews with government and company officials, as well as surveys and interviews with communities affected by new lithium mining, Prof. Larmer shows how political rivalries, limited and uneven community consultation, and diverse understandings of the potential benefits and costs of lithium extraction in southern Ghana led to a paralysis of mining production between 2023 and 2025, placing lithium mining at the center of Ghanaian political life.