Mining steps up to society’s growing demands.
The world in which mining must make its way today is a vastly different place to what it was a few decades ago. It is now operating in a more regulated, challenging context. The reasons are not difficult to understand. The negative environmental legacy of the mining sector lives on in many countries, including South Africa. Globally, this is still a common basis for many communities to oppose mining. The sector’s social impact has also been variable, often leaving little behind in the way of economic sustainability.
In recent decades, however, the industry’s responsiveness has been generally encouraging – paving the way to generating increasingly positive impacts in mining countries. These extend beyond the visible benefits of adding to job creation and government revenue, to the frequently unseen effects of promoting good governance and legal frameworks for economic development.
Mining has historically proved to be a pioneer industry in many countries, and is still playing that role around Africa. A key aspect of being an early entrant into an evolving economy, is that mining companies require the host country to provide and enforce ‘the rules of the game.’ This, in turn, needs regulatory institutions within the state to make policy and apply laws and regulations.
As mining has entered new regions, it has often provided the necessary pressure for government to extend and clarify regulatory frameworks for business to take place. Mining industry bodies have frequently contributed directly to this process. For example, the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) is today the global standard for promoting the open and accountable management of oil, gas and mineral resources.
