Daniel Nonor
10 November 2009
The 13th UNCTAD's African Oil, Gas, Minerals, Trade and Finance Conference, takes off toady in Bamako, Mali with focus on the critical role information can play in the natural-resource sector.
The theme of this year's conference is "Natural resources development: capturing value from information."
The conference ends on the 13th of November.
High-level officials of African governments, investors, executives from small and large petroleum and mining firms, bankers, law firms, and environmentalists participating in the conference will discuss how information helps reduce exploration risks, saves time during new exploration, and can achieve high recovery rates when new technology is applied to formerly abandoned sites.
Owners of resources also can benefit extensively from good information in terms of marketing and in making decisions - more thorough data can prove valuable in negotiations and in strengthening the policy-making capacities of host country governments.
Speakers at the opening session the afternoon of 10 November will include Amadou Toumani Touré, President of Mali; Fradique de Menezes, President of Sao Tome & Principe; Supachai Panitchpakdi, Secretary-General of UNCTAD; Chakib Khelil, Minister of Energy and Mines of Algeria and President of the Council of African Ministers of Energy (CAMEN); Houlin Zhao, Deputy Secretary-General of the International Telecommunication Union; Ahmed Ibrahim Elham, Commissioner for Infrastructure and Energy of the African Union Commission; Gabriel Dansou Lokossou, Executive Secretary of the African Petroleum Producers' Association; Mbaranga Gasarabwe, United Nations Development Programme Resident Representative and United Nations Resident Coordinator for Mali; and Antonio M.A. Pedro, Director of the UN Economic Commission for Africa's Sub-Regional Office for West Africa.
Over 400 participants from more than 30 countries are expected to attend the meeting, including 22 African government ministers for energy and mining.
African countries possess great stores of geosciences data existing from pre-independence times which have often gone unused for lack of knowledge or appreciation of the inherent value of the information.
Other information has gone unused because either governments have not obtained copies of what is available or, when information exists in the archives, it has not been properly catalogued or organized in a usable way.
Among other things, the conference will highlight the potential value of archived information. One expected outcome of the event is an initiative aimed at reinforcing the capacities of host countries to capture untapped value from already existing information can optimize natural resource development and management.
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