World Bank to Boost Critical Minerals Financing Fivefold to $19B by 2030

The scale of the shift matters more than the headline figure: a multilateral lender moving from marginal support to a multi-billion-dollar program signals that critical minerals are being treated as strategic infrastructure rather than ordinary mining risk. The 20 identified countries are the real story, since public financing is often what makes early-stage projects bankable in jurisdictions private capital avoids. The open question is whether this crowds in private and sovereign co-investment, or substitutes for it.