Africa’s mining sector has proven a mixed blessing. The continent’s mineral resources offer enormous possibilities for wealth, but they are also hard to reach. Sub-Saharan Africa, with the inhospitable Arctic, remains the most under-explored region on earth, geologically speaking. Yet the continent accounts for approximately 30% of the world’s mineral reserves. The geographical and logistical difficulties involved in locating and accessing Africa’s resource wealth have been worsened by the constrained post-2008 macroeconomic climate. Investors have been reluctant to fund new projects in far-flung geographies despite the rich rewards such projects offer in the medium to long term. One lingering consequence…
Jade Davenport
Africa: mining Across the continent, a wave of mining policy adjustments is impacting Africa’s investment attractiveness By Jade Davenport Mining, by nature, is an exploitative, dangerous and environmentally damaging activity. In any country’s economy it requires stringent regulation to ensure that minerals are mined responsibly and traded ethically, that host countries receive fair profit share of their natural wealth, that just compensation and opportunities are provided to impacted communities, that worker safety is prioritised, and that the environmental impact is minimised. Government mining policy is therefore a fundamental determinant, next to geological and economic considerations, of investors’ decisions in assessing…
