Communities where mining activities take place usually suffer neglect, insecurity, loss of livelihoods and environmmental degradation. Silas Ezeora writes that stakeholders are seeking to change the story.
As Nigeria aims to diversify its monolithic economy away from oil, the solid minerals sector is an area it looks to with great hope.
Recently, stakeholders in the mining and minerals sector from across Africa gathered in Abuja for the 2023 West African Mining Host Communities’ Indaba to propose initiatives that will not only protect mining communities from the ills associated mining activities, but also how they can benefit directly from the natural endowments in the lands.
The three-day event (November 15 -17) hosted by Global Rights, a justice and accountability rights group, and African Coalition for Corporate Accountability (ACCA), supported by development partners, had the theme: “Insecurity and Minerals Governance in West Africa: Building Mechanisms for the Protection of Mining Host Communities.”
Our correspondent reports that going by the unsavoury experience of communities in the Niger Delta region where the resource curse is most prominent: an oil-rich region whose inhabitants live in abject conditions while government and oil companies reap their natural endowments, leaving behind insecurity, environmental destruction, poverty and ill health, this summit could not be more priceless – to propose ways in which mining communities can be spared from going down the route of oil-bearing communities of suffering in the midst of plenty.
In her opening address, the executive director of Global Rights, Abiodun Baiyewu, described the pillaging of African resources two centuries ago by colonial invaders as the first form of terrorism inflicted on the continent, with their only aim being to enrich their nations and impoverish Africa.
She said, “Across West Africa, our gold, coal, tin, ivory, timber, rubber, and diamonds were forcefully exploited and shipped off to their countries. Not only were our resources stolen, our people enslaved, our communities paid very high prices for these encroachments. In some places, they succeeded in fracturing our societies so badly, we live in the manifestations of the intergenerational trauma that they inflicted. In others, they willfully destroyed our environment and laid the ground for our reduced resistance to climate change.”
In its third edition, the primary objective of the year’s West Africa Mining Host Communities’ Indaba (a Zulu word for ‘an important meeting’ which the organisers roughly translate to a solutions’ lab) was to discuss the nexus between insecurity, mining and energy transition in Africa which brought together stakeholders from the mining host communities, civil society organisations, the government, media, business entities, members of mining host communities, media, academia and other interest groups in the extractive sector, from Ghana, Mali, Cote d’Ivoire, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Kenya, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Zambia, Uganda, and South Africa, with Nigeria as the host country.
The participants noted that activities of foreigners targeting the mineral resources of Africa have spurred the wars, armed conflicts and political instability in some countries like Sierra Leone, Liberia, Cote D’Ivoire, Sudan, Niger, Burkina Faso, Mali and Nigeria where foreign companies arm local rebel groups and bandits in mineral-rich areas who take up arms against governments while they stole the minerals in the midst of the confusion they had created. In fact, they have sponsored the overthrow of legitimate governments on the continent.
Participants blamed the Chinese involved in illegal mining for the lead poisoning that afflicted thousands of children in Zamfara in 2010, leading to 400 deaths.
They are also fingered in the rampant banditry in resource-rich states like Zamfara and Niger State where ISWAP is said to be actively involved in mining to sustain its terrorist activities.
Baiyewu hit the nail on the head when she said in her speech: “Due to faulty governance systems, the extraction and trade of the resources found in our communities too often fuel conflicts, corruption, and violence, setting us into a spiral of insecurity that undermines the social and economic fabric of our communities.”
The executive secretary of the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI), Dr Orji Ogbonnaya Orji, who gave the keynote speech on ‘Improving Transparency in Minerals Resource Governance in Africa,’ said the best way to tackle this issue was to commit to transparency in the governance of these precious assets.
“It is a responsibility (of government) to ensure that the wealth derived from our minerals is utilised for the common good, that the benefits are equitably shared among our people, the environment is protected for generations to come and that the human rights of the people are well protected. In essence, it is the responsibility to govern these resources with transparency and accountability,” the NEITI boss said.
On his part, the minister of solid minerals development, Dr Oladele Alake, noted that the present administration was putting in place solid and enduring governance structures in the industry that future administrations would not be able to subvert, adding that the revision of the Community Development Agreements (CDAs) in order to plug loopholes noticed in the document was along this line.
At the sidelines of the Indaba, the minister launched the Ministry of Solid Minerals Development’s Revised Community Development Agreement (CDA) Guidelines during which he revealed that 252 mining companies had so far signed CDAs with their host communities which mandate them to provide social amenities like water, electricity, schools, and health centres as well as offer scholarships to indigenes, in line with provisions of the Nigeria Minerals and Mining Act 2007, Section 116 (1).
Speaking to the issue of CDAs, Ken Henshaw, an environmentalist and community development expert, and Shehu Sani, the president of West African Chamber of Mines, identified contested ownership of mineral sites as a big issue that often led to violent conflicts within and among communities.
Stakeholders Chart the Way Forward
At the end of the three-day event, some of the key points in the communique developed by the forum include: that weak regulation of mineral extraction and trade catalyze conflicts, corruption, and violence in mining host communities; that “resource curse” continues to leave the host communities exploited and victimized as they struggle to seek alternative livelihoods due to the loss of their primary means of livelihood occasioned by unethical mining activities in the subregion; that mining is crucial in the energy transition, providing the required commodities for renewable energies and climate technologies.
They also asserted that the failure to adapt climate-smart extraction of minerals was exacerbating adverse impact on host communities across the subregion; that the ECOWAS Mining Code, the African Mining Vision, and national laws recognize that the exploitation of minerals in any form must be for the good of the community; that it is the responsibility of states in the subregion to ensure that the wealth derived from minerals are utilized for the common good and that the benefits are equitably shared among the people.
The communique also recommended empowering mining host communities through sustainable policy initiatives as the surest path to lasting economic prosperity, environmental resilience and social harmony for the subregion and that regulatory agencies and mining host communities need to co-initiate strategies to effectively address the challenges faced by mining host communities across West Africa, among others.
Also, artisanal and small-scale mining should be standardized to net the revenue that would otherwise be lost; that the government must protect the rights of mining host communities from exploitation by businesses and that the capacity of community members should be strengthened to enable them build resilience against the vulnerabilities they are exposed to.
It was further noted that some of the government officials mandated to enforce the extant laws are already compromised to the detriment of mining host communities.
The conference came up with 11 recommendations some of which are: that the regional bloc, ECOWAS, should be more proactive in protecting mining host communities; that countries must provide adequate safeguards against violence from mineral extraction threats in the sub-region; that the African Union should promote policies and strategies to encourage the development of local technologies for minerals extraction to drive sustainable development on the continent; and that countries reform extant legislations to better respond to contemporary issues faced by mining host communities across the West African sub-region.
The participants also urged countries within the sub-region to incorporate Community Development Agreement (CDA) where it had not been in existence and ensure enforcement where it exists in mining regulatory regimes, and that states in the sub-region must expedite processes to adapt National Action Plans on Business and Human Rights.
Above all, the mining companies not only need to respect the country’s laws on mining and the rights of host communities, but also adopt environmentally sustainable and socially responsible practices in the mining industry in Africa.
Finally, the participants called for capacity building for mining host communities to better appreciate their rights and for policy-making on mining to include the participation of host communities and those directly impacted by the policies being made in line with the mantra of ‘not for us without us.’
