Strong government support and looking deep into corruption would ensure the mining development in Africa whilst creating ample job opportunities.
If we have to look into the scenario of African mining, it is unfortunate to say that it only contributes around 6 percent to global mining production. Though Africa holds nearly 30 percent of the global mining resources, certain reasons and challenges are hindering African mining development. And there is no doubt to the fact that mining industry is facing tremendous challenges right now with the extinction of easy-to-mine resources and difficulty in tapping new resources. There are many risks involved and several factors need to be taken into consideration, especially the climatic conditions.
Having said that, there are four of the biggest reasons why the African mining sector is lagging:
Many extraction processes remain unaccountable in African mines.
Poor implementation of mining codes that are leading to environmental calamities.
Location of the African mines.
African mining and environmental damages
The burning of fossil fuels and mining has always resulted in different kinds of environmental issues globally. The negative effects can be seen in the agricultural sector, harm to human health, ecosystem, etc causing many points of concern. Environmental pollution is the biggest challenge that is caused by mining. It leads to climate change, global warming, and severe degradation of the environment. Although large-scale mining companies in Africa carry on an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) to execute some serious mitigation control within the boundaries of the mine it has been noticed that the government’s role in enforcing EIAs is generally obsolete or weak that gives leverage to the companies to carry out a degraded assessment, resulting in major damage to the environment.
How mining development in Africa can lead to job creation without damaging the environment?
The African mining and the African mines have always generated huge profits for bigger companies who have invested in African countries, hence the local ones getting ignored. Now the government is taking all the crucial measures to the revenues from mining into infrastructure development and employment generation. If we talk about Sub-Saharan Africa, access to cost-efficient and green energy is extremely limited or rather challenging for the African mining sector. And because of the monopoly of the state-owned utilities, mining development in Africa has always slowed down.
The mining companies face a lot of power outages, especially in remote locations which hinders the use of HFO gensets on-site. But the mining companies have left no stone unturned to use advanced technology, innovation, and green energy to carry out their operations. And now that the mining companies are thriving to be transparent, and looking for better partnerships with the local communities, government, and other companies, this will open new avenues of job opportunities within Africa. The African mining sector and the mining development in Africa are undoubtedly seeing a large boom and the majority of it is derived from foreign direct investment. But the government needs to intervene in these processes so that the environment does not get harmed whilst giving the opportunity to people to get jobs and change the face of Africa in the coming years.