Addis-Ababa — -The African Minerals Development Center (AMDC) is organizing an event to present the training manual for capacity development in mineral development agreements. The AMV-aligned manual touches on agreements on negotiation, implementation and monitoring.
The presentation will be on Friday, 10 November 2017, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the United Nations Conference Centre in Addis Ababa.
The manual is envisioned to provide mineral practitioners and other stakeholders with expertise and capabilities to effectively negotiate transparent, equitable and sustainable mineral development agreements, as well as to implement and monitor them. As a decisional tool, the manual aims to build a critical mass of African stakeholders who are well informed and able to translate the transformative role of the AMV into the contracts negotiated. It is part of the Development Account project on contracts negotiation, led by AMDC for two years in five pilot countries.
According to Claudine Sigam, Capacity Development Officer at AMDC, "Most of African countries have not derived the maximum benefits from the exploitation of their mineral resources, partially due to a lack of developmental vision that will inform contracts negotiation, implementation and monitoring. The elaboration of an AMV-aligned training manual will certainly reverse the trend."
Based on an "in-depth" assessment of practices in contracts negotiation in many African countries, the manual emphasizes on the capacity of stakeholders to negotiate mineral development agreements that will increase the number of spatial and knowledge linkages and create a competitive industrial base in host countries. It is intended for officials working in public administrations in charge of the management of the mineral sector, related research centers, education and training institutions, parliamentary and judiciary bodies, professional associations, civil society organizations, etc.
The manual was drafted by Fanta Kaba, an economist and agronomist engineer with expertise in project development, management and monitoring in the natural resources sector. Ms. Kaba will be presenting the manual.
