Turning vision to action: Mining conference opens in Accra

A four-day conference on mining and Africa’s development got underway in Ghana’s capital, Accra today. Participants are drawn from a wide range of organsiations and constituencies from around the continent. The 40 participants includes activists and researchers working on mining and development issues, trade and investment issues, gender and development issues; trade unionists, artisanal and small-scale miners and community leaders from mining areas.

At the opening this morning, Yao Graham, coordinator of Third World Network-Africa (TWN-Af) and host of the meeting said the conference has three key objectives: deepen participants’ understanding of the Africa Mining Vision (AMV) and Action Plan; generate a common understanding about opportunities and challenges for civil society advocacy around the reform agenda; and discuss and make input into and help shape the Business Plan of the African Minerals Development Centre (AMDC). The AMDC is the continent operational body to oversee the implementation of the plans generated under the AMV.

The 2011 adoption of an Action Plan for the realization of the AMV and release of the International Study Group (ISG) report which offers critical intellectual ammunition in support of the Vision and the principles for the Action Plan represent a body of analysis and principles which provide a firm basis for policy dialogue between African grounded agenda about the place and role of mining in Africa’s development.

Since 2008, TWN-Africa and its counterparts in African Initiative on Mining, Environment and Society (AIMES) has pressed for the widening and deepening of outreach by the African Union and the UNECA towards organizations of Africa civil society for their meaningful and credible involvement in the processes around the AMV. Without an active and organized engagement by African citizens and their organizations, the promises of the AMV and its related documents will not amount to much.

Getting more revenue from mining companies is an important step. The AMV agenda is, however, much deeper and wider than the reform processes taking place in most African countries. The AMV envisages an end to Africa’s dependence on the export of raw material commodities and the structural transformation of African economies. It places far-reaching shifts in mining policy and the role of the sector in Africa’s economies within this transformative agenda.

This conference will thus hopefully contribute to how African citizens and their organizations work together to ensure that the policy decisions taken at continental levels not only become more widely known but more critically become the drivers of domestic policy change across Africa.

Hosted by TWN-Africa with support from the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) the meeting is organized by African Initiative on Mining, Environment and Society (AIMES) and the Africa section of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC-Africa).

Citing the Lagos Plan of Africa, ITUC’s Kwasi Adu Amankwah observed that the AMV is not the first time that Africa has developed a new progressive document to transform Africa’s primary commodity dependent economy to an industrialized one.

On the question of sub-regional and regional, ITUC-Africa suggested the need to develop a follow-up mechanism at the regional level to guide and assess national level work regarding the AMV to avoid relapse. There is also the need to institute mechanisms by which African countries can assess each other.

Oliver Maponga of the UNECA said although the ISG report took several years to complete the work done laid a solid foundation for the AMV. The recommendations of the ISG report have been applied to develop the AMV Business Plan. The AMV and its related documents and processes are owned by the African Union and its related bodies.

UNECA expectations from this consultative meeting include additional views or issues to be considered and new ideas on implementation. The UNECA is also hoping to build momentum around the AMV, review the work streams of the AMV Business Plan to be finalized for implementation by the end of July 2012.