Africa gov’t urged to promote linkages in mining

African governments need to promote linkages within the mining sector and across all other sectors of their national economies to help grow and deepen local content, speakers at the African Mining Vision Conference in Accra have proposed.

“Government must make deliberate efforts to support indigenous businesses to take advantage of the opportunities that the linkages and diversification provide in the mineral extraction sector.

“The linkages and diversification of mineral extraction are essential for job-creation and the overall development of the continent.

“The era where minerals are extracted in Africa and processed in Europe and other continents should come to an end.”

The conference was organised by civil-society group Third World Network to receive inputs and contributions to the strategic plan of the African Minerals Development Centre (AMDC), the coordinating body for the implementation of decisions towards the realisation of the African Mining Vision (AMV).

The AMV, formulated by African nations, puts the continent's long-term, broad development objectives at the heart of all policymaking concerned with mineral extraction.

It was adopted by heads of states at the February 2009 AU summit, following the October 2008 meeting of African Ministers responsible for Mineral Resources Development. The AMV sets out how mining can be used to drive continental development.

Abu Brima, Executive Director of the Network Movement for Justice and Development, said African governments need a strategy to deal with the influence of external powers on the continent.

“In this regard, policy coherence and realignment to promote integration and strengthen the negotiation positions of African governments is more than urgent.”

He said the participants were of the view that the AMV should be the key driver of all industrial policies in African countries and all political leaders should commit to its implementation.

In this direction, the meeting called for the formulation and implementation of public policy on artisanal and small-scale mining in order for it to play a central role in the transformative process, he said.

The meeting identified that various agreements -- multilateral and bilateral -- that African countries have either signed or contemplate signing could pose a threat to the reform agenda.

Its fifty participants were drawn from representatives of African civil society networks, coalitions and social constituencies from labour movements, mining-affected groups, artisanal and small- scale mining organisations, as well as policy officials and gender groups.