Stakeholders urge on implementation of Africa’s mining vision

Stakeholders have urged government to ensure implementation of the Africa Mining Vision was adopted by African heads of state in 2009 as the continent’s action plan for overcoming the paradox between large and varied mineral endowments and  widespread underdevelopment and grinding poverty.

Speaking during the validation of a research paper on ‘‘Building Mineral Based Linkages: A Case of Uganda’’ that it is crucial to develop and implement mineral based linkages and that this requires national and regional strategies”, stakeholders insisted that with implementation of the 2009 agreement would see tangible results.

David Sebagala, the Senior Inspector of Mines at the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources  brought to light the fact that they are implementing an online cadaster system which is the industry best practice in licensing.

‘‘There is need to solve the infrastructural problems and other bottlenecks related to mining sub sector if our minerals to become a major source for development,’’ Sebagala said.

Jane Nalunga, the Executive Director at SEATINI Uganda reiterated that as a country, there is  need to carefully protect policy space to achieve aspirations enshrined in the Africa Mining Vision.

According to Dr. Paul Jourdan, the lead Consultant for the Study, Uganda’s mineral resources

could be exploited to underpin resource-based industrialization through the realisation of the mineral linkages.

On the other side, Paul Bagabo, from the Natural Resource Governance Institute stressed that government needs to support the private sector, undertake infrastructure development and negotiation of regionals policies to support the mining sector.

Preliminary findings of the research that focused on three countries including Uganda, Mozambique and

Niger indicate among others that Uganda has registered slow progress in the mineral-based linkages partly due to the relatively small market for mining inputs and mineral products and absence of license requirements for value chain development in the Mining Act of 2003.

The meeting organized by SEATINI Uganda and Third World Network (TWN) was aimed at providing a platform for various stakeholders to validate research findings and come up with strategies on how to maximize impact from the mining sector.

The research will further be validated in other participating countries (Mozambique and Niger) and later, a research paper will be disseminated to the wider public and relevant institutions.