The Solid Mineral Development Fund (SMDF) has launched the Early-Stage Mineral Exploration & Research Grant Endowment (EMERGE), a new funding initiative aimed at closing Nigeria’s mining investment gap and unlocking value from the country’s vast mineral resources.
The programme was launched in Abuja on Wednesday. The SMDF said the programme is established under the Nigerian Minerals and Mining Act 2007.
It noted that the programme applications will be open on 10 July and will be assessed on a rolling, first-come, first-served basis.
SMDF said the funding will support early-stage mineral exploration, strengthen research capacity, and advance mineral-processing research that adds value to Nigeria’s minerals through competitively awarded grants.
Nigeria has over 44 commercially viable minerals, yet the sector contributed less than 1 per cent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), highlighting a gap between resource potential and economic value.
Speaking at the launch, the Minister of Solid Minerals Development, Dele Alake, said EMERGE works through three streams.
“The exploration stream funds the grassroots, early-stage work that finds and proves new deposits. The critical minerals stream funds both the search for the minerals that the global energy transition demands and the processing technologies that let us refine them here.
“The research and development stream funds the geoscience and mineral-processing research that underpins all of it. It is this combination, and the critical minerals stream in particular, that begins the real domestication of our value chains, because for the first time we are funding not only the digging, but the science of turning what we dig into finished, higher-value products on Nigerian soil,” the minister said.
Mr Alake said EMERGE is delivered by the SMDF, and it sits within a remarkable run of achievement by the Fund under President Bola Tinubu’s administration.
He said that where a researcher or an explorer once stood alone, there is now a grant from EMERGE at the start, technical advisory and co-funding from the project development facility in the middle, and the fund’s larger investments and partnerships at the top.
“This administration is no longer offering a single door. It is offering a full corridor of support, from the first geological idea to the final processed product.”
The minister said EMERGE will be transparent and competitive from beginning to end, adding that applications will be assessed strictly on merit.
“The process is independently administered by PwC, our programme administration partner, to guarantee transparency, accountability and a level playing field for every applicant. No connections, no shortcuts, only the strength of your proposal,” he said.
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Mr Alake said this is the first time in history that Nigeria is offering purposeful, dedicated grants for geoscience and mineral-processing research.
“The next breakthrough in how we process our lithium, our gold or our rare earths could well come from a laboratory in one of our own universities, and EMERGE exists to find it and to fund it. The support is here. What remains is for you to apply,” he said.
In her address, the Executive Secretary/Chief Executive Officer of SMDF, Fatima Shinkafi, said the era of exporting the country’s mineral wealth in raw form is drawing to a close.
“With the launch of EMERGE, we take another deliberate step toward a sector that explores with confidence, adds value at home, and rewards the nation that owns these resources.
“For too long, Nigeria’s mineral wealth has sat in the ground as unrealised potential, its most promising projects unable to attract early funding.
“EMERGE changes that, funding early-stage exploration, the processing technologies that add value at home, and the research behind them, then helping grantees move from grants to private investment,” she added.
