The Namibian Lithium Question

Namibia's critical minerals position rests on three policy instruments issued by three different ministries and enforced through ministerial discretion rather than codified law. The Minerals Beneficiation Strategy sits at the Ministry of Industrialisation and Trade. The 6 June 2023 Cabinet Decision on unprocessed mineral exports is enforced by the Ministry of Industries, Mines and Energy. National Development Plan 6, launched 21 July 2025, is owned by the National Planning Commission. None is embedded in a statute. None carries a hard deadline of the kind that anchors Zimbabwe's regime.

Beneath this policy stack, the lithium ecosystem has thinned considerably since 2024. Lepidico Limited, the Australian-listed operator of the Karibib project, entered voluntary administration on 3 December 2024. Creditors voted for liquidation on 15 May 2025. The parent's shares were declared worthless in June 2025 and the group was wound up in August 2025. The Karibib asset itself sits under a conditional option to International Lithium Corp, a Canadian junior, with an adverse Singapore International Arbitration Centre ruling against Lepidico Namibia in a Chinese offtake dispute hanging over the transaction.

Xinfeng Investments Namibia, whose mining licence 243 was revoked in April 2023 and reinstated by the High Court in June 2023, admitted in December 2024 to mining beyond its licensed area at Uis. It continues to operate. Andrada Mining's Uis operation is currently the sole Namibian lithium project producing commercial concentrate at meaningful grade, with a Lithium Ridge drilling programme expanded to 16,500 metres and high-grade intercepts reported through mid-2026.

Around this operational picture, the diplomatic architecture is substantial and largely delivered on non-lithium substance. The EU-Namibia Strategic Partnership on Sustainable Raw Materials Value Chains and Renewable Hydrogen, signed at COP-27 in November 2022, mobilised €1 billion in commitments from the EU, member states and European financial institutions, plus a €500 million European Investment Bank facility. Its concrete lithium-specific deliverable to date is a Walvis Bay port masterplan study led by Port of Antwerp and Bruges International. The US posture, articulated most visibly by Ambassador John Giordano at an April 2026 embassy summit, has moved from strategic language to explicit calls for "execution" — with no committed US capital or named US operator in the Namibian lithium sector as of the research cut-off. Chinese engagement in Namibian lithium specifically continues through a single dominant operator, Xinfeng, whose licence status remains contested. Chinese engagement in Namibia's wider critical minerals sector is broader and is addressed as a candidate for a subsequent Koussi brief.

This brief maps that picture. It does not argue that Namibia's position is failing or succeeding. It documents where the policy instruments sit, who enforces them, which operators are actually active, which deals are actually concluded, and where the gap between announcement and substance is widest. Where sources conflict, this brief uses the more conservative figure and flags the discrepancy. Where verification failed, this brief says so.

The reader should draw their own conclusions. The purpose of this brief is to make those conclusions reachable from the evidence.