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9 May, 2014One of IndustriALL’s strategic goals is to influence governments and business on sustainable industrial policy. This was taken a step further when the global union was invited to participate at a two-day constituency building workshop on the African Mining Vision.
The workshop was attended by civil society organizations and two of IndustriALL ‘s mining affiliates, the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) and the Ghana Mineworkers Union (GMWU). It was hosted by the Southern Africa Resource Watch (SARWA) and the Ghana based Third World Network – Africa.
The intergovernmental Forum on Mining, Minerals, Metals and Sustainable Development’s annual meeting, held in Geneva in 2012 adopted the Action Plan for the Implementation of the Africa Mining Vision. The Mining Vision had been adopted by heads of state and government of the African Union in 2009.
The meeting in Geneva followed a meeting of the 2nd African Union Conference of Ministers Responsible for Mineral Resources Development held in Addis Ababa from in 2011 on the theme Building a Sustainable Future for Africa’s Extractive Industry: from Vision into Action.
The Africa Mining Vision (AMV) provides a strategic pathway for Africa’s economic development trajectory, agreed by African nations themselves. It puts the continent’s long term and broad development objectives at the heart of all policy-making concerned with mineral extraction. The AMV sets out how mining can be used to drive continental development.
At the workshop, Industriall presented its industrial policy proposals, which are underpinned by the recognition of manufacturing as the engine for economic growth and decent work.
“IndustriALL’s industrial policy proposal resonates with the tenets of the Africa Mining vision, which recognizes mining as a catalyst for sustainable industrial policy for mining-dependent developing economies”, says Glen Mpufane, IndustriALL Director of Mining. “The AMV prescribes a policy trajectory that moves mining away from its enclave model of production to an integrated model of production. The model has down-stream linkages into mineral beneficiation and manufacturing and up-stream linkages into mining capital goods, consumables and services industries.”