Extractive Industries and Human Development Center
A Virtual Symposium on Developing Best Practices for the Extractive Industries and Human Development: Southern Africa
Please join us for a virtual symposium on Thursday, October 24th at 10:00am EST. To attend, please register here.
The symposium will focus on best practices for ensuring communities, governments, and the private sector benefit from the massive capital investment in infrastructure, mining and manufacturing that is currently taking place in southern Africa.
A 21st century mineral rush is underway as businesses, often enjoying financial backing from governments in industrialized countries, increasingly extract resources, such as copper, cobalt, graphite, coltan, tantalum and lithium, necessary to transition to economies that are more climate friendly. Exploration for precious metals and gems as well as for petroleum and natural gas also continues unabated.
For example, the United States government is seeking to ensure a greater diversification in the sourcing, supply chain and processing of minerals critical to the transition to a climate friendly economy. To achieve this, US joined other G7 countries to form Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment. Through the partnership, the G7 nations of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States aim to mobilize $600 billion in public and private funding for infrastructure by 2027. According to the White House, the Partnership will deliver game-changing projects to close the infrastructure gap in developing countries, strengthen the global economy and supply chains, and advance U.S. national security.
While discussion will draw on the specific experience of Angola, Mozambique and Zambia, the wider implications of growing global investment in the extractive industry and infrastructure sectors will also be examined.
Rafael Marques de Morais, a leading Angolan human rights and anti-corruption activist, will focus on changes in the diamond mining sector and the reforms needed to improve transparency in this economically important sector. Rafael is also active in promoting improvements in primary education and in prison reform in Angola. He has authored: Blood Diamonds, Torture and Corruption in Angola (2011), Misery and Magic Fuel Mayhem in Cafunfo (2021), and The Ethnic Conflict in Cazombo (2022).
Ian Mwiinga, who serves as the National Coordinator for the Zambia Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative Secretariat within the Ministry of Mines and Minerals Development, will discuss best practices for engaging local communities and for creating accountability among private and public project stakeholders.
Dr. Yussuf Adam, who has extensive research and field experience in rural development in Mozambique, will focus on the impact of investment projects on local communities. In Cabo Delgado, Mozambique’s northern most province, a violent extremist insurgency arose in the context of investments in mining and in the construction of what was to have been one of the world’s largest liquified natural gas (LNG) plants. Dr. Adam has conducted interviews with people whose communities have been resettled to make room for the LNG plants and with many people internally displaced by the armed conflict.
Dr. Gregory Pirio, Director of Extractive Industries and Human Development Center, will moderate the symposium. Dr. Pirio has been a global leader in the use of communications and the media for constructive social change. His professional activities have concentrated on an array of global health, conflict resolution, behavior change communications, media development and youth empowerment, among others. He has undertaken these activities in partnership with international organizations, bilateral organizations, international NGOs and ministries of health.
