NMJD PROGRAMME OFFICER RETURNS HOME FROM MALI

The Programme Officer of the Mining and Extractives Programme of the Network Movement for Justice and Development (NMJD), Mohamed Sheik Turay, has returned home from Bamako, Mali, after attending the 12^th Annual Strategy Meeting of the African Initiative on Mining, Environment and Society (AIMES). This year’s Annual Strategy Meeting, held in Bamako on 6-8 July 2010, was organized by the Third World Network (TWN-Africa) in collaboration with the Bamako-based Institute for Research and Promotion of Alternatives in Africa (IRAD)

Mohamed Turay (3^rd from right) presenting his country updates

The AIMES Annual Strategy and Planning Meetings have been held annually since 1999. The main purpose of these meetings is to create a platform for members of the network and its partners to share information and experiences and using same to plan and map out strategies for influencing policy-makers, duty-bearers and officials of mining companies.

These meetings have become a platform and a political voice for communities and African civil society organizations in matters relating to mining and extractives sector, including policy frameworks and practices, community rights and environmental sustainability on the African continent and internationally.

This year’s meeting, the first to be hosted in a francophone country, came hard on the heels of two years of unprecedented record high mineral prices, chaotic global financial crisis and a dramatic fall in prices of various minerals with the exception of gold. It was held at a time when many African countries, including Sierra Leone, are working on a number of reform agendas that aim at bringing about transformation in the extractives sector on the African continent.

“African governments have over the last two decades judiciously pursued the policy of open-ended liberalization of the mining sector. The price boom which left the continent with pittance of mineral revenues elicited action to forestall mineral revenues and promote economic transformation.

“The AIMES Strategy Annual meeting is therefore timely, as it will send a signal to our leaders in Mali and beyond about the significance of transforming our mining sector to benefit our people,” IRAD Coordinator, Momodou Goita, said in his welcome statement.

As a result of the fluidity of mineral prices that took effect in 2008, the governments of Africa, under the African Union, launched an agenda for a continental reform of Africa’s mining regimes. A meeting of Ministers and senior officials from eleven mineral-rich African countries resulted in the establishment of an International Study Group (ISG) by the UN Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) in September 2007 to Review Africa’s Mineral Regimes. The ISG has submitted a draft report and two consultative meetings conducted to review the report.

Both consultative meetings were meant to identify key concerns, areas that need improvement or require further work, and areas that were absent from the report. Both meetings concluded that the following areas need further work: Community Issues; Linkages; Small scale artisanal mining; Gender dimension of mining; Labour and workers rights; Fiscal Framework; Capacity issues for governments; and Implementation strategy.

Participants at the Bamako meeting

“The meeting, therefore, focused on three broad areas to include: 1) capacity building of network members and its partners to strengthen their knowledge and understanding of mining and mining-related issues, especially the global financial crisis and its impact on Africa’s reform agenda, 2) experience sharing of what operates in the mining and extractives sector of individual countries and networks, and 3) identifying campaign issues and developing a position statement and strategies on how to effectively engage the issues so identified.

“The meeting is a huge success in all respects, especially the formation of the Civil Society Working Group on the Extractives Sector whose main purpose is to gather and share information on human rights issues relating to the extractives industry. New members from Niger have also joined the Network. This shows the growing interest our work is generating across Africa,” Mohamed Turay of NMJD said on his return from Mali.

As the draft Communique of the meeting states: “The financial crisis has inflicted devastating effects on the economies of African countries through job losses, collapse of businesses, and shrinks in government revenues from selected minerals, in particular, copper and diamond. While countries dependent on base metals and gemstones were the worst victims in Africa, women were the most affected social group due to their socially marginalized status.

“The financial crisis exposes the inherent weakness of the structure of African economy and its over-dependence on the global economic order. At the same time, the crisis has exposed the flaws of neo-liberal economic model,” parts of the draft Communique reads

In his country updates, NMJD Programme Officer, Mohamed Turay, highlighted, among other things, the rapid developments that have taken place in the extractives sector of Sierra Leone in the last two years. Specially, he mentioned the review of existing mining policies resulting in the enactment of the Mines and Minerals Act 2009, the discovery of huge deposits of iron ore in Port Loko and Tonkolili districts in the northern region of the country. This discovery is believed to be the largest deposits of iron ore in Africa and the third largest in the world.

“Work towards full operations has already started in some districts, whilst in other districts, it is expected to start before the end of 2010. Also, large-scale gold mining has started in the northern region of Sierra Leone, with the largest deposits of gold discovered in Baomahun in the southern region.

“Large quantities of bauxite have been discovered in the northern region also, and several companies have expressed interest to invest in it. This is in addition to the mining of bauxite and rutile in the southern region that has been going on for many years now.

“Oil exploration will soon start in Sierra Leone. The Government is working hard with its development partners to put policies and other mechanisms in place for the start of oil exploration. With the discovery and exploitation of new minerals, the challenges of ensuring that mining is done in a way that the country and its citizen’s benefit from it are huge. This is the challenge, which CSOs and other like-minded institutions in Sierra Leone are grappling with,” Turay said.

The three days meeting brought together over 30 participants drawn from 14 countries and networks around Africa and the global south such as the United Kingdom, America and Canada.