Ghana’s mining and quarrying sector contributes greatly to the country’s economy. In fact, the country is the second-largest gold producer in Africa and the tenth-largest producer in the world.
According to the Ghana Chamber of Mines, gold contributed 96 percent of mineral export revenues in 2017, with the mining sector contributing 43 percent of export revenues in total that year.
However, mining communities in the country are understood to be facing social, economic and ecological challenges.
The Conversation, in its 2020 report on Ghana’s mining communities, noted that one important reason for the challenges is the local authorities’ ‘capture’ of mineral royalties transferred back to the mining areas.
In its response to the challenges of the communities, the Centre for Democratic Development in Ghana (CDD-Ghana) recently initiated the Mining Districts Development Scorecard (MDDS) project.
CDD-Ghana, in a statement, said the project, with financial support from Ford Foundation, seeks to track the transfer and use of mining revenues in mining districts to promote transparency and accountability and improve social and human development outcomes.
The MDDS project is being implemented in eight mining districts across six regions of Ghana.
The districts include: Tarkwa Nsuaem, Prestea Huni-Valley, and Wassa East/Mpohor in the Western Region; Bibiani Anhwiaso Bekwai in the Western North Region; Birim North in the Eastern Region; Obuasi in the Ashanti Region; Asutifi North in the Ahafo Region; and Upper Denkyira West in the Central Region.
‘These districts were carefully selected based on the quantum of mining resources they receive, and their socio-economic outlook using the District League Table (DLT) scores and poverty scores from the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS)’, the statement read.
‘Another indicator for selection was the presence of social accountability-demanding groups such as the media and civil society organisations (CSOs) that can use the information generated from the project for advocacy engagements’.
The project’s long-term goal is to empower and strengthen community participation in natural resource governance and management for better development outcomes at the sub-national level in Ghana.
It was gathered that the project will be executed in three phases, with the first phase ‘the preparatory stage’.
The second phase will focus on data collection within the eight districts, while the third phase will see the launch of the report at the national level to be followed by community engagements within the districts.
‘There are some districts which do not have mineral resources but they perform better than some of these mining districts’, Senior Research Analyst at CDD-Ghana, Awal Mohammed, said.
‘Every district receives money from the Common Fund and the District Development Fund. While these mining districts receive additional resources from mineral revenues, they still perform poorly in terms of development, and the DLT, including other socio-economic indicators, verify this’.
He added, ‘If we have transparent and accountable institutions managing these resources, they would be used effectively to respond to the socio-economic needs of the people to bring about the needed development’.
The government of Ghana enacted the Minerals Development Fund Act in 2016 to facilitate development in mining-affected communities. However, the act, reports suggest, has not been able to address the multiple challenges of mining communities in the country.
Source: The EITI
