Mining vision cure for resource curse

Dr Kafumu is a geologist and former Commissioner for Minerals. He is currently a member of parliament 

By Dalaly Kafumu, BusinessWeek Reporter

In Summary

This week we continue looking at the African Mining Vision (AMV) as a vital instrument for bringing Africa into a powerful single voice in ensuring that extractive (minerals) resources are exploited and used for the benefit of Africa.

This week we continue looking at the African Mining Vision (AMV) as a vital instrument for bringing Africa into a powerful single voice in ensuring that extractive (minerals) resources are exploited and used for the benefit of Africa.

As previously said, the African Mining Vision envisages a fully integrated mining sector to be a single African market for Africa’s resources that will catalyze and contribute to the broad-based growth and development of the African continent.

AMV is regarded as a sure mechanism to obliterate the so-called mineral resource curse in the continent.

The African Mining Vision wants to ensure that extractive resources’ wealth is efficiently captured and utilized for national development. The document is a key strategy to guarantee accountable resource management that secures the greatest benefits for citizens.

The AMV offer inclusive and comprehensive national strategic plans and actions that create clear legal frameworks and competent institutions to manage the resources.

The AMV directs governments to consider first and foremost the localization of the mining industry; in terms of the attainment of technology and experts by building local expertise and technological capacities and the ability to engage and partner with rich large-scale mining companies including accessibility to capital from foreign stock markets on a win-win situation.

In this respect African governments in the African Union fraternity need to design and implement mineral policies and statutes that are aligned to the AMV in order to exploit and use mineral resources in a way that it retains more benefits without frustrating investment.

Through the AMV the developing world in Africa wants to develop and implement an economic relationship with the developed world that ensures these nations become independent markets.

Apart from the presence of this robust benchmarking document - the African Mining Vision, that the African Heads of State at the February 2009 African Union Summit put the continent’s long-term and broad development objectives at the heart of the mineral extraction policies; why is Africa is failing to achieve a single African market that would be an instrument and a tool of economic power and liberation?

The first reason why Africa may be failing is that the developed world still has enough incentive and justification to continue with the economic relationship that ensures developing nations continue to be a source of raw material and a market for manufactured goods and technology.

Because of this need by the developed world, Africa is regarded as a prime investment destination, hence the continent is forced to maintain a certain foreign policy that ensures the continuation of the distorted relationship with the developed world.

The second reason is entrenched in the AU leadership’s lack of commitment to African (integrated) issues against individual country issues.

In other words the African integration process is not pushed enough to be implemented. There is more lamentation than implementation. The AU leadership does not always sit back and review the implementation process.

The third reason is the perception that external expertise can be more trusted than internal expertise. There is less confidence in internal experts than there is for foreign experts even if the expertise is internally available.

This perception hinders and retards the building of internal human resources and technological capabilities to be able to internally manage the mining sector in the continent.

In order to get out of theses doldrums; the AU must begin the implementation of the AMV by harmonizing policies and statutes that must be followed by building strong integration institutions.

Short of that the “divide and rule” principle will continue to be used by donor countries and financiers to deepen African individual country roots.

Each country will continue to maneuvere individually and the dream of the Africa continent becoming one - the United States of Africa, to achieve economic freedom that can ensure mineral resources benefit the African continent will never be achieved