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Gold Mining and Human Rights in Mali
Real estate news By The People's Voice
Oct 12, 2007
Gold mining has become a major economic activity in Mali since 1990, its second source of export revenue after cotton. Its fast growth has led to much hope for development, a hope that has been bolstered by the past few years' boom in the price of gold on the global markets. Gold mining, an economic activity bearing high potential, could indeed contribute to improvement in the country's Human Rights situation by generating employment in the mining sector, which in turn could pull up other sectors of the economy. It should also improve state revenue and therefore the state's capacity to assume social expenditure (education, health, infrastructure, etc.). In addition, the establishment of a mining industry is often accompanied by local?development programmes intended to attenuate or offset the effects of mining activity, particularly on the environment. Yet in all these aspects the contribution of the mining sector to Malian development has been negligible, when not negative.
Mali remains poor, very poor, nearly the poorest of countries: it ranks 175th among 177 countries in terms of human development. Though it is the third gold producer in the continent, its per capita GNP is equal to USD 380 whereas the average in sub?Saharan Africa is USD 745. Behind this economic data lies a social reality made up of daily violations of many basic Human Rights, specially in their economic and social dimensions: nearly one?third of the population is underfed, less than one out of two persons has access to drinking water, just one out of five persons can read and write, more than one out of ten babies die before the age of one and life expectancy is 48 years.
What can explain that Malian gold is of such little benefit to the population? First of all, the strong position of the companies gives them an advantage in every aspect: they play up their voluntary programmes in favour of the local communities as per their "corporate social responsibility" (CSR), even though the programmes have very limited, and sometimes perverse results; at the same time, behind the scenes, they obtain exemption from taxes and social obligations so they can draw the highest possible profits from their activity, and sometimes they go as far as violating existing regulations when they consider them to be too binding.
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