PASSIVE ACCUMULATION Mining, without sufficient beneficiation or industrialisation, results in the passive collection of taxes and royalties, which is ultimately unsustainable
In spite of the efforts deployed by countries in Central Africa to incorporate the objectives of the African Mining Vision (AMV) into national policies and legislative frameworks, the results are still limited and do not drive inclusive growth and sustainable development, according to an Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) report.
Lobbying organisation African Minerals Development Centre (AMDC) – a premier sponsor of the 2017 Investing in African Mining Indaba – recalls that the ECA report, titled ‘The state of progress and next steps in the implementation of the AMV in Central Africa’, was reviewed at a December ad hoc expert group meeting in Brazzaville, Congo. This meeting was aimed at proposing recommendations that enable countries of the subregion to enhance the gains from their enormous mining potential.
The report notes that the extensive work on the subregion’s mining economy shows that, with regard to their national regimes, the Economic Community of Central African States member countries are yet to be fully aligned with the AMV, whose long-term objective is to establish mechanisms that allow for a transparent mining industry and an optimum, equitable and rational exploitation of mineral resources so as to support steady, inclusive and sustainable growth.
Opening the meeting, Congo Minister of Mines and Geology representative Louis Marie Joachim Djama underscored the importance of the reflection on the AMV, while admitting that, though nature had blessed his country with huge mineral resources, the “country does not benefit fully from these resources that are scarcely processed locally into industrial products and are exported without any real local added value”.
However, he told the experts that his country had created an enabling environment for the exploitation of the said mineral resources within the framework of a National Development Plan for Congo.
United Nations Development Programme resident representative and coordinator of the United Nations (UN) system in Congo Anthony Ohemeng-Boamah argued that countries of Central Africa are already the main suppliers of certain minerals and, therefore, needed to be bold in their level of ambition and invest in building the necessary capacity and institutions to make their mineral deposits a real source of wealth. He cited the example of coltan – one of the main components of mobile telephones – stating that Central African countries needed to move away from being “just simple suppliers of crude coltan and become producers of coltan-based smartphone component parts”.
“This is about moving away from a situation where we are passive collectors of taxes, dividends and royalties to an approach where we privilege [from] the use of our raw materials to boost industrialisation and the structural transformation of our economies,” Ohemeng-Boamah added.
For his part, ECA Central Africa subregional office director Antonio Pedro noted the changing dynamics of the extractive industries since the adoption of the AMV in 2009. This involved falling commodity prices, the adoption of the UN Sustainable Development Goals, the rising challenges of climate change and the impact of digital transformation and technological advancements on the sector.
He underscored that this situation represented both a challenge and an opportunity for the implementation of the AMV in Central Africa. “As such, the Republic of Congo, which sits on an in situ value of almost $3-trillion of potash, could play a central role in fertilising land to feed the world’s population, which is projected to rise to ten-billion by 2050.”
In Pedro’s view, Central African States should seize the opportunities ushered in by the new dispensation.
The AMDC notes that, once finalised, the ECA report will be circulated to policymakers in Central Africa to enable them to absorb its contents to improve the contribution of the mining industry to the development of their countries.
The AMV was adopted by African heads of State at the February 2009 African Union summit. It is an outline meant to leverage Africa’s mineral wealth to alleviate the continent’s pervasive poverty. The AMDC was also established at the 2009 summit. It is meant to provide strategic operational support to guide the implementation of the AMV, and falls under the remit of the ECA.