Zambia Geological and Minerals Development Act, 2025 (Act No. 2 of 2025)

Mechanism

The Geological and Minerals Development Act, 2025 (Act No. 2 of 2025) is the second pillar of Zambia's 2024–25 mining-sector legislative overhaul. Where the Minerals Regulation Commission Act, 2024 (No. 14/2024) created the autonomous MRC as the licensor-regulator, this Act restructures the Ministry of Mines and Minerals Development itself, establishing three statutory directorates under the Civil Service Commission:

1. Director of Geological Survey — mandated to conduct geo-scientific research, develop and maintain mineral databases, promote prospecting and exploitation, and operate an accredited mineral analysis laboratory. Provides the scientific-data backbone underpinning the MRC's licensing function and the 3 Mt/yr copper expansion target.

2. Director of Artisanal, Small-Scale Mining and Value Addition (ASM) — responsible for formalising and technically supporting the artisanal and small-scale mining sector, which accounts for a material share of Zambian cobalt and gemstone production outside formal large-scale concessions.

3. Director of Large-Scale Mining and Mineral Investment Promotion — develops investment attraction policies, promotes local content in mining operations, and is the compliance authority receiving annual local-content plans under SI No. 68/2025. This directorate's mandate directly operationalises the procurement-quota local-content regime.

Artisanal and Small-Scale Mining Fund: A new statutory fund channelling grants and subsidised loans to small-scale miners for capacity building, equipment, and training. Its creation acknowledges the governance gap between the MRC (focused on large-scale licences) and the artisanal sector.

Zambian-goods preference: The Act mandates that mining-right holders give preference to Zambian goods and services — the statutory basis later given binding procurement-quota teeth by SI No. 68/2025 (Local Content Regulations, effective 1 January 2026).

Structural position in the ZM resource-nationalism stack

This Act is the second of three instruments in Zambia's post-2024 legislative build-out:

The GMD Act and MRCA together divide mineral-sector governance: the MRC handles regulatory/licensing functions autonomously, while the Ministry's new directorates handle geological knowledge, ASM development, and investor promotion — a model explicitly separating regulator from promoter to reduce regulatory capture.

Downstream implications

• SI 68/2025 enforcement backbone. The Director of Large-Scale Mining and Mineral Investment

Promotion is the authority receiving annual local-content plans from all large-scale licence holders. Without this Act coming into force, the SI's compliance reporting would have had no statutory home.

• ASM formalisation signal. Creation of a dedicated ASM directorate and Fund indicates Zambia

intends to bring artisanal copper/cobalt/gemstone production into a regulated framework — relevant for conflict-mineral due-diligence (3TG/cobalt) supply-chain traceability pressure.

• Geological data infrastructure. A statutory mineralogy laboratory and public geo-database,

if well-resourced, materially reduces exploration-risk premium for greenfield entrants (KoBold Metals Mingomba, new entrants targeting IOCG targets outside the established Copperbelt).

• Investor-mapping anchor. First Quantum (Kansanshi/Sentinel), Barrick (Lumwana), Vedanta (KCM),

Glencore (Mopani), and CNMC operations now face the full three-instrument compliance architecture; the GMD Act's local-content mandate is the statutory basis for the escalating SI quotas.

Open questions

• Whether the Act supersedes, replaces, or amends any prior geological-survey legislation from the

2015 Mines and Minerals Development Act era — the ZambiaLII consolidation does not list any repeals, but ministry reorganisation may dissolve prior survey-department statutory powers.

• Funding mechanism and initial capitalisation for the Artisanal and Small-Scale Mining Fund —

the Act creates the legal vehicle but appropriation is a separate Budget/Ministry of Finance matter.

• Pace of appointing the three Directors under Civil Service Commission procedures — the enforcement

capacity of SI 68/2025 is partly contingent on the Large-Scale Mining Director being in post before the first compliance-plan deadline (mid-2026).