adminHerald Reporter
Local non-governmental organisations and civil society groups under the banner of the Fair Green and Global 3 (FGG 3) see the National Development Strategy 1 (NDS1) as a way they can enhance their goals of alleviating poverty, increasing social justice and gaining gender equality in a US$12 billion mining industry by 2023.
Led by ActionAid, the lobby groups recently held a meeting for all stakeholders where they commended the overall objectives of the Government’s NDS1,especially ensuring that Zimbabwe fully benefited from its mineral resources.
President Mnangagwa launched a strategic roadmap to achieve a US$12 billion mining industry by 2023 as the Government ramps up efforts to increase the sector’s contribution to the economy. During this launch, he mentioned that the mining industry was key to Government’s goal of achieving the upper middle-income economy by 2030.
Action Aid seeks to achieve three things: poverty alleviation, social justice and gender equality.
The initiatives by the Government of Zimbabwe present an opportunity to achieve our objectives in a complimentary manner, said ActionAid country director Mr Joy Mabenge during the meeting.
NDS1 correctly pointed out that although the country was endowed with over 40 minerals including gold, platinum group metals, diamonds, coal, gemstones, granite, manganese, chrome, lithium, asbestos, iron ore, copper, nickel, cobalt, limestone, coal-bed methane and rare earth minerals, Zimbabwe’s mineral resources were under explored.
The NDS1 further points out that weak governance in the sector has been the major limiting factor. To achieve increased and sustained growth in the mining sector, the NDS1 stipulates that priority will be to improve the ease of doing business in the mining sector and this will be realised through finalisation and implementation of mineral specific policy frameworks and a comprehensive review of the Gold Trade Act, Precious Stones Trade Act and amendment of the Mines and Minerals Act.
“The FGG3 project thus comes at a perfect time when the Government is implementing the NDS1 while ActionAid globally is reshaping our strategic implementation framework to focus on systems change for economic justice as one of its major focus.
“This enables us to positively contribute to the growth of the mining sector at the same time addressing inequality and poverty gaps and ensuring participation of marginalised groups in key economic activities,” said Mr Mabenge.
A number of issues needed to be addressed in search of social and economic justice with poor governance of mineral resources being one of the major causes of the disconnect between mineral extraction and development.
NDS1 acknowledged that this caused economic instability, poor service delivery, especially for gender responsive services, and poverty which has limited human development.
The country continues to lose potential revenue due to smuggling of minerals especially in the diamond, gold and gemstone sectors where artisanal mining is taking place.
“There is little attention being paid to the gemstone industry now. We are however glad that the Minerals Marketing Corporation of Zimbabwe has recently started to improve policies in the gemstone value chain. The value of the black granite sector is also understated, and this remains a cause for concern,” said Mr Mabenge.
Communities were also lamenting the limited community beneficiation and ownership and also how the artisanal small-scale mining sector has been neglected in terms of having policy and law recognising and regulating the sector.
The FGGIII all stakeholders inception meeting included representatives from the Ministry of Mines, Parliament, rural local authorities, the Zimbabwe Environmental Lawyers Association, district development coordinators and funding partners, AANL and the Dutch embassy in Harare.
Online Reporter