The US Trade and Development Agency (USTDA) currently has, regarding mining, a particular focus on critical minerals, pointed out USTDA deputy director and COO Thomas Hardy. He was speaking in a session of the Investing in African Mining Indaba 2026 conference, being held at the Cape Town International Convention Centre.

When it came to supporting mining projects in Africa, the first thing for the USTDA was to get together with the respective African governments, and find out what their priorities were. The next step was to work with the developers on the ground. The agency, he affirmed, could do nothing without the US private sector. 

"There are so many factors in the mining sector," he noted. "When you look at [the required] infrastructure, it's basic." That is, it's about energy, water, transport and so on.

But critical minerals projects were more complex than most, because they often involved complex orebodies and/or variable and/or marginal grades. These projects needed more early-stage work to ensure their exploitation would be economically viable. The USTDA could play a crucial role in these early project stages, helping ascertain the nature of the target resource.

"Transparency really isn't optional," he stressed, when it came to seeking USTDA support for a project. It didn't matter the size of a project; even for the smallest projects, transparency was a fundamental prerequisite for any project the agency would consider for funding and support.

Also of great importance was the regulatory framework of the project host country. This included worker and environmental regulations. The USTDA sought to ensure that any project they supported would meet the requirements of the financiers. "We care greatly about regulatory reform."

From the USTDA's perspective, a project also needed the right procurement practices. Poor procurement practices could derail an entire project.

And another thing, that had been brought to the agency's attention by the mining companies themselves: getting the necessary official project permits was nice, but if the project did not have the support of the local communities, the permits were of no help. Developers needed to think through the processes of getting the local communities, including informal miners, involved in their project, he highlighted.

"We have a robust due diligence process," assured Hardy.