The original Great Game was a political and military rivalry between the British and Russian empires for supremacy and influence in Central Asia in the 19th century. A second Great Game played out in the 1990s after the fall of the Soviet Union, between the US, Chinese, Russian and regional governments and corporations in a scramble for oil and gas, centred on the Caspian Sea. Today, a new Great Game is beginning in Central Asia, this time between the great powers of Russia, China, the US and EU. Its focus is the huge mineral wealth in the region.
Together, the countries of Central Asia hold 38.6% of the global supply of manganese ore, 30.1% of chromium, 20% of lead, 12.6% of zinc, 8.7% of titanium, 5.8% of aluminium, 5.3% each of copper and cobalt, and 5.2% of molybdenum. These are all highly sought after for clean energy transition technologies, as well as military and AI demands. According to investment analysts, defence and AI demand could increase critical mineral consumption by 135% in a decade.[1] Two countries dominate: Kazakhstan, which has the world’s largest chromium reserves, produces 39% of global uranium output, and is also rich in zinc, copper, cadmium and bauxite; and Uzbekistan, which has silver, molybdenum, selenium, titanium, cadmium, and lithium reserves, ranks 11th in the world for copper reserves and 5th for uranium supplies.
Why Central Asia has been overlooked by funders to date
For funders, Latin America, Southeast Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa are traditional areas of operation, with existing partnerships. This is understandable as they are also home to governments with long-standing diplomatic relationships with Western states. By contrast, Russian/Soviet and Chinese diplomatic activity and investment have long dominated in Central Asia, including the development of mining and transport infrastructure and export markets.
But this has been changing in recent years. The US and Europe have begun to recognise the strategic importance of the region. The EU’s 2021 Global Gateway strategy and 2024 Critical Raw Materials Act both focus on Central Asia and the EU has signed Memoranda of Understanding with Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan on critical mineral supply chains. In 2024, the US launched the C5+1 Critical Minerals Dialogue with Central Asian states.
A rapid uptick in mining activity that risks environmental and social impacts in a water-scarce and repressive context
Public finance for the mining sector is now flowing into the region. In 2024, for example, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development invested over $3 million in the huge Sarytogan graphite mine in Kazakhstan,[2] and in 2023 provided technical support to the Uzbek government to develop policy on critical raw materials. The Asian Development Bank, meanwhile, has focused its efforts on creating conditions for critical minerals-to-manufacturing value chains. The World Bank just announced a ‘Metals and Minerals Country Compact’ with Kazakhstan at its Annual Meeting in Bangkok in October 2026, which commits to helping the government raise $20 billion in investment in the sector by 2031.
A legacy of the Soviet era, most regional export routes still run north to south, leaving Central Asia heavily dependent on Russia for exports to the US and Europe. This makes trade vulnerable to conflict. The region’s main transit hub, Kazakhstan, suffers from aging infrastructure, with over half of its railway tracks in disrepair. Multilateral development banks are not only investing in the mining and policy infrastructure, but also the transport infrastructure that is needed to export these minerals to EU and US markets.
Mining for critical minerals in this region poses additional challenges given the water scarcity in this arid zone, and mining and smelting operations’ consumption and pollution of scarce water resources. Carbon- and resource-intensive extraction exacerbates glacier melt and degradation of fragile ecosystems. Already-repressive regimes in the region are likely to be further entrenched by the ‘Green Resource Curse’, while community consultations and co-benefits are often sidelined.
Support needed for strategic interventions
Civic space is severely curtailed in all five Central Asian countries, which is limiting the opportunities to debate development pathways. Crucially, the space for civil society and communities affected by mining projects to question the pace and scale of critical minerals extraction, hold government and corporate actors accountable, or much less to influence the course of project development, is severely curtailed in the region by the authoritarian regimes that dominate in Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan. While there has been some progress in Kazakhstan, freedom of speech and assembly there are still routinely suppressed.
A limited number of non-governmental organisations are working collaboratively and strategically on this issue in the region. CEE Bankwatch Network works with local groups and has been mapping EBRD investments in several countries, while the Coalition for Human Rights in Development is working on issues around civic space and reprisals. Business and Human Rights Centre is looking at EU strategic projects and Recourse is tracking public finance flows to minerals projects across the region. The long, slow work of supporting local groups, building networks of support, filing cases through accountability mechanisms of MDBs, direct support to local civil society, capacity building, convening and learning from other regions’ experiences are all gaps that need to be filled. The scale of the challenge is daunting. It requires mapping, monitoring, capacity-building and advocacy around this emerging issue. It is only through a significant increase in attention and support from funders - most of whom have long overlooked this region - that any of this will be possible.
Notes:
[1] The Payne Institute estimates defence industry demand surges of 250% for vanadium and manganese, 200% for titanium and copper, and 80–100% for gallium, tantalum, and rhenium by 2035.
[2] The EBRD is also involved in lithium, zinc, copper, gold, tungsten and lead exploration and/or mining in Kazakhstan.
Read more about the "Dialogues on Mineral Governance Funding" series