Brazzaville — The Government of Congo, through its Ministry of Mines, and the African Minerals Development Centre (AMDC), will host a workshop on 8 to 10 December 2016 to launch a project aimed to increase the capacity of the country to negotiate the most optimal mining contracts.

Funded by the 9th Tranche of the United Nations Development Account, the project aims to provide technical assistance to key mining sector stakeholders to negotiate, implement and monitor its mining contracts more efficiently and effectively.

Titled, "Strengthening the capacities of African governments to negotiate transparent, equitable and sustainable contracts in the extractive industries for broad-based sustainable growth and socio-economic development," the workshop in Brazzaville is one of the initial events, which will be later on followed by wider series of training sessions in the country.

Project Coordinator and AMDC Officer Claudine Sigam, said, "We see this as an opportunity to collaborate with the Government of Congo and to create synergy with other development partners who are engaged in similar initiatives."

Central Africa Clearing Path Towards Inclusive Development

On the heels of the 8th Extraordinary Session of the Heads of State of the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS) held in Libreville, Gabon, the Economic Commission for Africa has been organizing a series of dialogues across Central Africa to encourage countries of the sub-region to stay the course of structural transformation. The path involves dynamically moving from low-value agrarian economic structures to productive agriculture, manufacturing and quality services - this is seen as the pathway way towards inclusive growth and sustainable development. More about ECA in this BRIEFING. 

The key achievement of the Africa Mining Vision (AMV) is in the process of engagement in countries and region and to manage expectations more efficiently, the AMV takes a multi-stakeholder process, which is inclusive and where governments, private sector and non-state actors are systematically engaged in finding pragmatic convergence to support resource-based development in Africa.

With AMDC as the implementing partner, the AMV-based project aims to strengthen the country's capacity in negotiating and managing its mining contracts to optimize broad-based development effects generated from the revenues of these contracts.

Participants from various Ministries such as the Mines and Geology, Petroleum, Finances, Environment, Justice, Labour, etc. are expected to attend the event. They will be joined by representatives from public institutions, geological survey organizations, and the civil society.