Africa's Dichotomy

This continent, with 600 million hectares of uncultivated arable land, holds the world’s greatest known reserves of minerals. But Africa suffers from the resource curse, with many communities affected by mining ending up worse off than before the mining began. Entire villages have been forcibly removed from their ancestral land, in many cases with no replacement land. Members of the communities have been arrested and imprisoned for protecting the only asset they have, their land, which is most often their only source of livelihood.

In addition, rivers and land have been contaminated from mining processes and communities have lost access to water. The African Charter on Human and People’s Rights, established to guarantee these communities’ rights, is often violated.

Governments are burdened with the high costs of subsidising natural resource operations and profits. They also lose revenue due to tax evasion, tax breaks and revenue hiding by companies. Governments use extensive state resources to provide health care for thousands of mine workers and affected mining community members, clean up polluted areas and rehabilitate mined land.

The question remains whether the mining revenue obtained by governments equals the subsidisation provided by them.