By JONAH NWOKPOKU

Nigeria’s Environmental Rights Action, ERA, has warned that the African Mining Vision, AMV, adopted by the African Union, AU, in 2009 to provide guidance on how mining must be managed may not favour the continent.

The group said the policy will only favour foreign investors to the detriment of the African continent and will not address critical livelihood concerns of local artisans.

ERA made this position in a statement made available to Vanguard following the recently concluded 14th Annual Review and Strategy Meeting of the African Initiative of Mining, Environment and Society held in Accra Ghana.

At the meeting, participants examined the challenges and opportunities relating to the AMV and observed that while the policy remains important to re-organisation of the political economy of mining on the continent, African governments and national elites have monopolised the relatively minor profits that are left over from what foreign companies exploit, while ordinary people remain jobless, and poor, while mining-related environmental disasters also continue to plague their communities.

According to ERA’s Executive Director, Godwin Ojo, “while we applaud the AMV initiative of the AU for attempting to address mining challenges on the continent, it is doubtful if the policy as currently tailored can deliver on its objective of greater benefits to the people as the status quo promotes the externalisation of production costs and the senseless plunder of the environment without adequate remedy.

“From the text of the policy, obviously the AU is yet to consider looking inwards for value addition. African leaders are still focusing on extraction mainly for export markets in Europe and other parts of the world, thus condemning the African continent to doom and an unequal exchange and use of natural resources. Sadly, this has led to a point where we have over-exploitation in the global South and a corresponding over-consumption in the global north.”