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The Minerals Security Partnership (MSP) Forum is a multilateral cooperation platform bringing together 15 MSP Partners and another 15 critical mineral-producing and -consuming countries at various stages of development, with a focus on both advancing and accelerating individual projects and promoting policies that contribute to responsible, diverse, and resilient value chains with local value-addition at the centre.

The MSP Forum is co-chaired by the United States and the European Union.

The MSP Forum was inaugurated on 5 April 2024 in Leuven, Belgium, by European Commission Executive Vice-President Valdis Dombrovskis and by US Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken. It currently has 30 members: Argentina, Australia, Canada, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Estonia, the European Union, Finland, France, Germany, Greenland, India, Italy, Japan, Kazakhstan, Mexico, Norway, Namibia, Peru, the Philippines, the Republic of Korea, Serbia, Sweden, Türkiye, Ukraine, the United Kingdom, the United States, Uzbekistan, and Zambia.  

The MSP Forum has two main components:

A project group that focuses on supporting and accelerating individual critical mineral projects, and; 
a policy dialogue group addressing key policy issues linked to the secure and sustainable supply of critical minerals.

Since its launch, two high-level events have taken place within its framework.

The MSP, the MSP Forum and the CRM Club

The MSP Forum is a key component of the Minerals Security Partnership (MSP), which was launched in June 2022 on the margins of the Prospectors & Developers Association of Canada (PDAC) Convention. While the MSP seeks to prompt public and private investments in responsible critical minerals supply chains across the world, the MSP Forum aims to formalise and extend the MSP’s existing engagements with producing countries. The 15 partners that adhered to the MSP before the MSP Forum’s launch are also members of the latter. These partners are Australia, Canada, Estonia, the European Union, Finland, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Norway, the Republic of Korea, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

The MSP Forum also materialises and expands the concept of CRM Club (Critical Raw Materials Club) outlined by the European Commission in its 2023 Communication on 'A secure and sustainable supply of critical raw materials in support of the twin transition'.

MSP Forum high-level events

The first high-level MSP Forum event was organised virtually on 18 July 2024. The main objectives and a roadmap for the MSP Forum were shared during the event. Eight new MSP Forum members were welcomed, namely Argentina, Greenland, Kazakhstan, Mexico, Namibia, Peru, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan.

The second high-level MSP Forum event, and the first to be organised in person, took place on September 27^th, 2024, in New York City, on the margins of the United Nations General Assembly High-Level Week and Climate Week. This event dealt mainly with the opportunities, priorities and challenges in responsible mining, processing and recycling of critical minerals needed for the energy transition. Seven new countries joined the forum on this occasion, i.e. the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, the Philippines, Serbia, Türkiye and Zambia.

MSP Forum Project Group

The MSP Forum's Project Group focuses on supporting and accelerating critical mineral projects, by providing MSP Forum Members with the opportunity to engage with each other and with third stakeholders, including export credit agencies, development finance institutions, and the private sector, on concrete initiatives. Possible forms of engagement could include project information sharing, presentations on critical minerals opportunities within MSP Forum Members’ territories, technical assistance, and geological survey and mapping requests.

The MSP Forum Policy Dialogue Group

The Policy Dialogue Group seeks to encourage discussions between MSP Forum Members on policies aiming at supporting a secure and sustainable supply of critical raw materials. It is planned to organise a series of workshops bringing together government representatives from MSP Forum Members, industry actors, non-governmental organizations, financial institutions and other key stakeholders. The discussions will focus initially on two main workstreams, the first one dealing with policies to boost public-private investments in critical minerals including a trade-friendly local-value addition agenda in producing countries, and the second one with the key opportunities and challenges arising from the application of high Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) standards.

On 12 December 2024, the EU and the United States hosted the first in a series of MSP Forum workshops, entitled 'Public-Private Investment in Critical Minerals Focusing on Developing a Positive, Trade-Friendly Local Value Addition Agenda in Producing Countries'. The workshop took place in Brussels during the 2024 edition of Raw Materials Week. Participants discussed three key issues: the challenges facing investors, government policies aimed at fostering the development of the critical raw materials sector, and ways to mobilise investment to increase local value addition.

On 4 February 2025, the EU and the United States hosted the second event of the Policy Dialogue Group of the MSP Forum, entitled ‘Environmental Social and Governance (ESG) Principles in Critical Minerals Supply Chains’. The event took place in Cape Town, South Africa, during the 2025 edition of Mining Indaba, and focused on the policy dimension of the implementation of ESG standards in the critical raw materials sector. Discussions dealt notably with case studies of ESG-aligned projects and policies, and with the challenges associated with the cost of products produced according to ESG standards.