Mining vision must tackle widespread poverty

African governments need to set out national visions and policies on mining to tackle the widespread poverty and drive continental development, Dr. Yao Graham, Coordinator of Third World Network (TWN-Africa), has said.
 

The vision should not only seek to deal with fiscal policies but also a broad range of issues including integration of artisanal mining, community livelihoods and establishing the necessary linkages to enhance the benefits of the resource for mineral-rich countries.

The vision must as well put the continent’s long-term and broad development objectives at the heart of all policymaking concerned with minerals extraction.

Dr. Graham, who was making a presentation in Accra, said mining and mineral resources have been important in the trade investment relations of Africa with the world, and that Africa has been one of the key suppliers of strategic minerals to industrialised countries since colonial times.

“Despite the long history of mining, the continent is yet to fully optimise the potential of mineral resources to catalyse economic transformation. 

“Since the late 1980s, governments of Africa have undertaken series of reforms aimed at optimising the contribution of mining to the national economic development of mineral-producing and exporting countries.

“While the revival of foreign investment has expanded mineral production and exports, its contribution to social and economic development objectives has been far less certain -- and has even been contested in many countries across the continent.”  

Dr. Graham was briefing journalists in Accra as part of an upcoming Africa-wide civil society conference hosted by TWN to improve and deepen knowledge on the African Mining Vision (AMV).

The conference is being convened to facilitate and deepen understanding of the processes and substantive content of the reform agenda, especially in relation to the AMV, its action-plan.

The meeting is also expected to generate common understanding about opportunities and challenges around the African mining reform agenda, and to make inputs and contributions to the Business Plan of the African Minerals Development Centre (AMDC). 

The conference will bring together about 50 participants drawn from representatives of African civil society networks/coalitions and social constituencies from labour movements, mining-affected community groups, artisanal and small-scale mining organisations, gender-groups, the media, and policy officials among others.

The four-day conference, slated for June 26-June 29, will deal with issues such as managing and protecting community livelihoods, human rights and the environment in mining areas, the labour regimes with large-scale mining, mineral-commodity dependence, fiscal policies and the transformation of the mineral economy.

The conference is expected to conclude with the adoption of a plan based on a common position for advocacy on the reform agenda, as well as a set of recommendations to improve the effective functioning of the Business Plan of the AMDC.