CAPE TOWN --&nbspMultilateral pan-African financial institution Africa Finance Corporation (AFC) has announced plans to launch a dedicated exploration development investment company within the next 12 months, aiming to close the continent’s widening mineral exploration funding gap.

Speaking at African Mining Week in Cape Town on Wednesday, Franklin Edochie, Deputy Director and Head of the Metals and Mining Desk at AFC, explained that the new investment vehicle is designed to expand Africa’s mineral reserves, boost domestic production and secure mineral sovereignty.

“If we don’t invest in African exploration, we risk losing control over where our resources end up,” he emphasized. “Investing in exploration is one of our primary targets because local value-addition strategies depend on discovering and defining new reserves.”

He underscored that continent-led exploration funding is vital to insulating Africa from global geopolitical pressures, which often dictate which projects receive capital rather than prioritizing the minerals most critical to the region's long-term economic development.

In tandem with upstream discovery, the AFC is scaling its infrastructure commitments across key trade corridors. “We want to expand our investments in regional ports and power corridors to ensure major industrial areas, such as the Copperbelt, are fully powered,” he added.

Reinforcing the push for upstream discovery, Freddy Mwamba Kanyinku, Director General of the Democratic Republic of the Congo's (DRC) Centre d’Expertise, d’Evaluation et de Certification (CEEC), highlighted the DRC's ongoing national geological mapping program as a major entry point for global investors.

Kanyinku noted that while the DRC has completed high-precision geomapping for only 19% of its territory so far, modernizing geological evaluation mechanisms has already transformed how foreign investors access the country.

"Previously, to invest in the DRC, you had to go through Belgium first. That is no longer the case - investors can now come directly to us," Kanyinku stated, pointing out that advanced survey equipment being procured by CEEC is giving stakeholders a clearer view of the country's resource value.

"Eighty percent of our land remains unexplored. While we have secured partnerships with countries like the US, there is still immense opportunity for international investors across these uncharted mineral regions," reiterated Kanyinku.