"Africa: Africa Mining Vision ", 12 November 2018

The Africa Mining Vision (AMV) is Africa’s own response to tackling the paradox of great mineral wealth existing side by side with pervasive poverty. It is intended to provide the basis for an alternative policy framework to address the reality that Africa's mineral wealth, as in the days of colonialism, still primarily benefits outside interests, impoverishing those who mine the wealth and leaving only a fraction of the profits for investment in sustainable development of African countries. The AMV was adopted by Heads of State at the February 2009 African Union summit...The goals of the AMV include: making sure that nations are able to negotiate contracts with mining multinationals that generate fair resource rents and stipulate local inputs for operations; making sure workers and communities see real benefits from large-scale industrial mining and that their environment is protected...improve livelihoods and advance integrated rural social and economic development...Achieving these goals requires paying attention to all the stages of the value chain of non-renewable mineral resources, from contracts and licenses for exploration and production to integrating mining with sustainable development plans...The Africa Mining Vision....also offers a systematic process designed to engage policymakers at international and national levels with civil society, trade unions, communities, academic researchers, and journalists in shaping its implementation. Its adoption was preceded by extensive consultations with international initiatives such as the Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative (EITI)...Most important, there are specific plans for implementation at the national level through Country Mining Visions, which provide opportunities to "domesticate" the vision with the aid of consultations at national level. The Country Mining Vision Guidebook lays out clearly defined agendas to address key issues, including: Fiscal regime and revenue management...Despite the positive direction, the AMV process is still dwarfed by the inertia of the status quo process...For a new vision to be implemented, it must be strengthened by intensification of collaboration among the African Mineral Development Centre, allied national civil servants committed to delivering benefits to their citizenry, and other forces committed to transparency and transformation, including journalists, academics, civil society, and trade unions.