Guinea, Tanzania, and Zambia: Integrated Community Development at Mine Sites

An important aspect of the sustainability of an investment in extractive or land resources- for the investor, host government and communities- is the extent to which the investment benefits local communities in the region and minimizes any negative impacts. As a first step, local and regional governments should undertake integrated development strategies, informed through community engagement and supported by public and private partners, which prioritize sustainable development goals to ensure that communities in the region benefit from the presence of the investment.

In 2012-2013, CCSI collaborated with the Earth Institute and Millennium Development Goal Centers in West and East Africa to adapt the broad precepts of the Millennium Villages Project to the specific conditions of mining sites. This advisory effort included parallel planning processes at two AngloGold Ashanti gold mines—Siguiri in Guinea and Geita in Tanzania—to create a framework for sustainable mining activities in Africa. Millennium Villages (MVs) demonstrate that communities can achieve the MDGs through context-specific and community-led action plans across a variety of sectors including health, agriculture, education, infrastructure, nutrition, and gender equality.

CCSI added specific analyses of the legal and fiscal arrangements (in the laws and contracts), ASM practices and policies, and environmental management to the traditional areas of rural development included in the MVs.

Community Development Funding

Guinea’s 2011 Mining Code introduced a large number of reforms directed to increasing transparency and the contribution of the mining sector to development, including requirements for the establishment of a local development fund and for community development agreements between mining companies and local communities. As part of the legal and fiscal analysis of the gold mining investments in Guinea, CCSI examined how these provisions could be implemented effectively. CCSI produced a report (en français) that makes recommendations as to how the Government, mining companies, civil society and communities can work together to maximize the benefits of local development funding in the Guinean context. The report analyzes the legal framework that has been in place in Guinea to date, focusing in particular on the experiences of the stakeholders around the Société AngloGold Ashanti de Guinée mine in Siguiri, assesses the improvements and remaining weaknesses in the draft regulations (as compared to the previous legal framework) and provides a comparative analysis of models and good practices of community development agreements and local development funds globally.

The report provides recommendations on:

• The definition of multi-stakeholder revenue management bodies
• The definition of the local communities that are to benefit from community funding
• The allocation of mining revenue among communities affected by or around the mine
• Revenue management and volatility
• The selection of development projects under the local development fund
• Management of projects funded by the local development fund
• The process for entering into community development agreements
• Institutional arrangements to implement the requirements of the community development agreements