Victoria R. Nalule - Mining and the Law in Africa: Exploring the social and environmental impacts

Victoria R. Nalule

Mining and the Law in Africa

Exploring the social and environmental impacts

To the African girl child

The mining sector is essential in the economic development of many resource rich African countries as it has the potential to finance infrastructural developments which are much needed in Africa. This is due to the fact that various minerals are used as raw materials in different sectors including construction and transport. Most importantly, mineral materials also play an important role in industrialization and urbanization which are now rapidly escalating on the continent. Africa is home to 30% of mineral reserves and these significantly contribute to exports and tax revenues for most countries on the continent. Although the minerals have been exploited for decades in these countries, the benefits have not been so visible, this has necessitated various reforms in the sector including nationalization of mining activities in the distant past; and currently legal and regulatory reforms. This book gives an insight of these developments drawing examples from Eastern, Southern and Western African countries. With reference to fieldwork research undertaken by the author, the questions raised in this book are: Why have the mining laws not been effective in some African countries? What can be done to ensure that African countries fully benefit from their mineral resources? This book is intended to address these questions by specifically pointing out the social and environmental impacts of the mining sector to the communities. The book also analyses the legal reforms made in the sector and highlights the challenges and prospects of such reforms on both the foreign investors and the African governments.

The African continent is endowed with various minerals including gold , diamonds, vermiculite, manganese, cobalt, zirconium, salt, phosphate rock just to mention but a few. Mining basically refers to the extraction of coal and other substances from the earth. With this definition in mind, we note that broadly defined, mining includes the extraction of fossil fuels including oil, gas and coal. The discussion in this book however excludes fossil fuels and focuses on solid minerals.

The mining sector has increasingly become important due to the rising demand of some minerals such as iron ore which has prompted an increase in foreign investments.

Taking an example of Botswana , it has highly benefited from its mining sector and this has been attributed to the good governance system in the country. Botswana heavily relies on its mining sector which contributes a third of the countrys GDP; 50% of the countrys tax earnings and 80% of the total export. The situation is similar in countries such as Namibia and South Africa . However, for other African countries such as the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Malawi , South Sudanthe potential of the mining industry to effectively contribute to the economic development has not been realized due to various issues including lack of advanced technology, lack of infrastructure, political instability, corruption both on the part of the mining companies and government officials. In this respect therefore, the topical issues in the African mining sector include but not limited to infrastructural development; value addition; linkages; corporate social responsibility ; local content ; environmental protection; land access and small-scale/ artisanal mining .