Remarks by H.E. Annalena Baerbock
President of the 80th Session of the United Nations General Assembly
at the Informal Interactive Dialogue on Commodity Markets
Thursday, 21 May 2026
[As Delivered]
Excellencies,
Ladies and gentlemen,
Today¡¯s crises are placing severe strain on commodity markets on a global scale.
According to the World Bank, energy prices are projected to rise by 24 per cent in 2026, driven largely by supply disruptions caused by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.
Energy shocks do not stop at energy.
They raise transport costs, disrupt supply chains, increase everyday prices, and threaten food security.
Fertiliser prices are projected to rise by 31 per cent, adding pressure on agricultural markets already strained by the war in Ukraine and disruptions to grain supplies.
Meanwhile, the pressures on commodity markets fall especially hard on countries that are already vulnerable.
Ninety-five out of 143 developing economies, including over 80 per cent of least developed countries, depend on commodities for their export earnings.
They also face a deeper structural injustice.
Many developing countries hold resources essential to the clean energy transition, digital infrastructure, and the wider twenty first century economy.
Yet while they export raw materials, others capture most of the value through processing, refining, manufacturing, technology development, and global distribution.
As a result, countries that supply resources for global growth receive only a fraction of the wealth those resources create.
Our discussion therefore needs to focus on three priorities:
- Reducing the damage caused by ongoing crises;
- Strengthening the resilience of vulnerable, commodity dependent economies; and
- Helping countries with natural resources receive a fairer share of the value they create.
First, reducing commodity shocks also means addressing the crises that drive them.
As we see in Ukraine and the Middle East, conflicts and crises extend far beyond the battlefield.
The long-term answer lies in the peaceful settlement of disputes in line with the United Nations Charter.
Yet while conflicts continue, their immediate fallout still has to be managed.
Food, energy, and fertiliser need to keep moving, and market shocks should not become development crises.
We saw the kind of practical action needed when, in March 2022, the Secretary General established the Global Crisis Response Group on Food, Energy and Finance in response to the global impacts of the Russian war in Ukraine.
The Black Sea Grain Initiative that followed helped export over 32 million tons of food commodities to 45 countries across three continents, easing pressure on global food prices.
With conflicts now unfolding alongside climate shocks, debt distress, and supply chain disruptions, that same spirit of practical action is needed on an even larger scale.
Second, resilience requires diversification, because commodity dependence narrows choices.
When a country depends on one or two exports, whether oil, copper, coffee, or cocoa, a fall in prices can mean fewer hospitals built, fewer classrooms repaired, fewer roads maintained, and fewer services delivered for people.
The same is true for imports.
Heavy dependence on imported fuel, food, or fertilizer can send import bills soaring when disruption occurs elsewhere, pulling scarce resources away from development and the people.
Diversification gives economies more than one source of growth, revenue, and resilience.
For many developing countries, that requires affordable finance, stronger infrastructure, technology transfer, skills development, investment, and better access to markets.
These are practical foundations for building new sectors, creating decent jobs, moving into higher value activities, and giving more people the chance to build livelihoods at home.
Third, fairer commodity markets require countries to receive more of the value their resources create.
Often, it is developing countries that hold the critical resources necessary to advance the wider twenty first century economy.
For example, the Democratic Republic of the Congo accounts for roughly 70 per cent of global cobalt mining, while Guinea holds about a quarter of global bauxite reserves.
Yet too often, these resources are exported raw, while most of the value is created elsewhere through processing, manufacturing, technology, and distribution.
Value addition can help change that pattern.
When countries process and refine resources closer to home, they create skilled jobs, increase public revenues, build industrial capacity, and give local communities a stronger stake in the wealth beneath their soil.
The Democratic Republic of the Congo offers a clear example of what this can mean in practice.
Cobalt has been valued at around 5.8 dollars per kilogramme at extraction, rising to around 16.2 dollars after local processing.
That difference reflects the gap between exporting raw materials and creating greater economic value at home.
Making that shift possible at scale requires finance, infrastructure, technology, skills, investment, and access to markets.
It also requires supply chains that are more just, transparent, sustainable, and development oriented.
This is the shift called for by the Secretary General¡¯s Panel on Critical Energy Transition Minerals in its report, Resourcing the Energy Transition.
Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵ Task Force on Critical Energy Transition Minerals now provides an important mechanism for carrying this work forward across the United Nations system.
To further advance this work, Member States should also cooperate to reflect these priorities in the norms that shape international trade.
Well-crafted trade agreements can help commodity-depending countries move up the value chain, rather than leaving them to export raw materials while others capture the greater share of value.
And there are examples which already have proven that this works: for example, partnership between Chile and the European Union. Chile is a major producer of copper and lithium, both essential to the clean energy transition.
Their trade agreement forms part of a broader framework of cooperation on sustainable raw materials value chains, including processing, refining, recycling and other forms of value addition.
Together, these efforts show how trade frameworks can help create more value where critical resources are found.
If such approaches become more common, they can help commodity dependent countries, especially in the Global South, make greater progress towards the 2030 Agenda ¨C delivering on the SDGS.
With that in mind, today¡¯s discussion should not remain in a silo.
The reflections from this dialogue should feed into wider discussions on the implementation of the Pact for the Future and the 2030 Agenda.
By delivering tangibly on the priorities discussed today, we will make direct and substantial progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals.
Because commodity markets shape daily life.
They affect whether families can afford food, whether farmers can plant, whether goods can reach markets, whether governments can fund essential services, and whether resource rich countries can turn natural wealth into meaningful and lasting development.
That is why this dialogue matters.
Reducing the damage caused by shocks, strengthening resilience through diversification, and building fairer value chains are practical steps towards greater stability, broader opportunity, and a fairer share of the wealth countries and communities help create.
Through that work, commodity markets can better serve development, and we can move closer to the promise of being Better Together.
In this regard, I thank you, and I wish you a productive and engaging interactive dialogue.
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