The mining industry has a crucial role to play in supplying the minerals and metals that are essential for the ongoing global clean energy transition. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), a concerted effort to reach the goals of the Paris Agreement would require a quadrupling of critical mineral requirements for clean energy technologies by 2040. An even faster transition, to hit net-zero globally by 2050, would require six times more mineral inputs in 2040 than today.

How can resource extraction companies, communities, and government all share in the economic value created by the high demand of critical minerals for the energy transition? What does a fair, equitable, and inclusive energy transition look like?

To address these questions, the 19th Annual General Meeting (AGM) of the Intergovernmental Forum on Mining, Minerals, Metals and Sustainable Development (IGF) convened with a focus on the theme “Sharing Mining Benefits in the Energy Transition.” Meeting in various sessions, the AGM considered important and relevant sub-themes, including:

• ways to strengthen engagement on social issues, including gender equality and human rights;
• best practices in stakeholder engagement and community benefits sharing;
• building resilient critical mineral supply chains;
• mineral pricing and integrated value chains in the energy transition;
• community development agreements and building community resilience;
• transforming the extractives industries for sustainable development;
• actions needed to ensure a fair, equitable, and inclusive energy transition for all;
• opportunities and risks for resource-rich countries arising from the low carbon transition, and implications for the current model of financial benefit sharing in the mining sector; and
• better managing artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM).

The IGF serves as a global platform for dialogue among its member governments from 81 countries, as well as other stakeholders from mining companies, industry associations, civil society, and non-governmental and international organizations. The IGF was launched in 2005 and its work has been framed, since 2011 by its flagship policy guidance and assessment tool, the Mining Policy Framework, which identifies best practices through six pillars of mining policy and law: the legal and policy environment; financial benefit optimization; socioeconomic benefit optimization; environmental management; mine closure and post-mining transitions; and ASM.

IGF AGM-19 met from 7-9 November 2023 in Geneva, Switzerland. The ENB writers for this meeting were Keith Ripley; Gabriella Boger Prado; and Gerrit Hansen, Ph.D. The Digital Editor was Ángeles Estrada. The Editor was Leila Mead.