Understand the African way of life

AUSTRALIAN miners operating in Africa have been warned about the importance of social governance when engaging with local communities on local exploration and mine development approvals and economic opportunities.

Gilbert + Tobin Lawyers energy and resources partner Phil Edmands told the conference that, across a continent which had suffered the deep-rooted and negative impacts of historic colonial settlement, modern day social governance now needed to be part of the DNA of the investing company, not a condescending annoyance.

“The most precious commodity for resource investors in Africa is certainty, which helps insulate against overreach in changes to African regulatory and fiscal regimes where that doesn’t occur,” Mr Edmands said.

“The skillsets necessary for social governance in a country which still struggles from a lack of local capital formation and development, requires an understanding by Australian participants of Africa’s history, the indelible stain of colonialism and pre-existing attitudes that African peoples were ‘inferior and would benefit from civilising’.

“Africa has also had to manage global reaction to its long fight for economic independence; and this has seen the continent pilloried in Western media for failed attempts at such desires for nothing more than wanting their own people to actually fairly share in the riches of African lands.”

Getting the balance right should include recognising and valuing the major differences between Western and African cultures. Mr Edmandes said these included:

• The concept of land – as a generalisation, Western societies did not have the same concept of land as part of soul and identity

• African cultures are much more people-based

• Western culture is about right and wrong – a danger for foreign investors is assuming their ideas are right and they just have to convince counterparties why

• There are generally many paths and not everything is reduceable to an economic or mathematical formula. There’s a need to appreciate the wisdom of other cultures

• Acknowledgement of unconscious bias: colonial powers considered Africans inferior, so it didn’t occur to them to consider the ethics of their treatment of Africans although the world has moved on since then

• Unless miners truly accepted African people as equal, they cannot fully engage with them.

The Mines and Petroleum Minister of Mali, Madame Lelenta Hawa Baba Ba, spoke about opportunities to invest in Mali’s mining sector, the challenges and keys to success.