Public Dialogue: Governance & transparency in extractive industries (West African)
01 June 2010
- 03 June 2010
Venue: Saly, Senegal
On the 1st to the 3rd of June 2010, over 40 representatives from civil society and government in West Africa gathered by the seaside in Saly, Senegal, for a dialogue on Transparency and Social Accountability in the Governance of Natural Resources in the region. The dialogue was hosted by the capable IED Afrique, the implementing partner in West Africa for ANSA-Africa.
The dialogue was opened by the Minister of Environment, Mr Amadou L Diagne. He highlighted the role of community participation and government accountability as the cornerstones of sustainable governance. The next couple of days were filled with insightful and inspiring case studies on civil society interventions in mining and forestry from the region followed by challenging discussions.
Legislative reform quickly surfaced as one of the most pressing issues relating to natural resource governance in West Africa. Most resource rich countries are dependent on their natural resources but are unable to extract benefits from them because of weaknesses in the legislature framework and limited capacity to apply oversight to the regulations that are actually in place. The example of land tenure in Senegal illustrates these challenges clearly. Land is owned by the Senegalese state but the most prominent problem is still land grabbing by private companies. This does not only display a lack of capacity to enforce legislation but more disturbingly a severe lack of political will to empower citizens.
West Africa displays an impressive diversity in resources, diversity of stakeholders, diversity in legal frameworks, and diversity in the use and governance of these resources. One of the major obstacles for social accountability is the lack of public knowledge about the legislation, which in many instances allows for public participation. Several of the civil society organisations participating at the dialogue, including IED Afrique, have done extensive work on popular legal education at the local level to equip mining communities with tools to demand accountability from their elected representatives.
The dialogue also presented innovative approaches to successful community involvement in forest management. Concrete results from civil society actions can be seen in Burkina Faso and Mali with legal frameworks including public participation. In Madagascar people are effectively managing their own resources. Guinea has also implemented a successful participatory management process of forest resources which has lead to increased purchasing power. In Madagascar, local communities are involved in management committees in protected areas, which have prevented displacement and conflicts are resolved through customary mechanisms. In Burkina Faso, a process of cataloguing traditional practices has been completed leading to the inclusion of these practices in legal frameworks. In Guinea, Rural Integrated Plans deal with land tenure and property rights in a community sensitive manner.
The dialogue concluded with a roadmap for further regional networking and the strong desire to consolidate and expand ANSA-Africa in Francophone Africa.
Conference papers can be found at http://www.iedafrique.org/Communications-de-l-atelier.html or accessed below
Additional:
View presentations on "Public Dialogue: Governance & transparency in extractive industries (Southern Africa)"
View presentations on "Public Dialogue: Governance & transparency in extractive industries (East Africa)"
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