Stakeholders Underscore the Need to Build Mineral-Based Linkages in line with AMV.

Stakeholders from Civil Society organizations working on Gas and Oil, Tax Justice Alliance Uganda members, Private Sector, Government Ministries, Departments, and Agencies, media, youth, academia among others in the mining sub sector agreed during a validation for a Research Paper on; ‘‘Building Mineral Based Linkages: A Case of Uganda’’ that it is crucial to develop and implement mineral based linkages and that this requires national and regional strategies comprising of appropriate policies, laws, and practices.

The objective of the meeting was to provide a platform for various stakeholders to validate the research findings in Uganda and come up with strategies on how to maximise impact from the mining sub sector. This meeting was organised jointly by SEATINI Uganda and Third World Network (TWN) Africa on 17th August 2021.

Preliminary findings of the research that focused on three countries (Uganda, Mozambique and Niger) indicate among others that Uganda has registered slow progress in the mineral-based linkages partly due to the relatively small market for mining inputs and mineral products and absence of license requirements for value chain development in the Mining Act of 2003.

While giving his opening remarks, Dr. Yao Graham, the Coordinator at Third World Network Africa noted that in 2020, TWN conducted a Research Study on; ‘‘Building Mineral Based Linkages: Lessons in three African Countries (Mozambique, Uganda & Niger). He added that the research in the three countries seeks to evaluate the progress made by African countries in the building of mining linkages and diversification, and the key lessons since the launch of the Africa Mining Vision (AMV) ten years ago.

David Sebagala, the Senior Inspector of Mines at the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources (MEMD) brought to light the fact that MEMD is implementing an online cadaster system which is the industry best practice in licensing.
‘‘There is need to solve the infrastructural problems and other bottlenecks related to mining sub sector if our minerals to become a major source for development,’’ David Sebagala said.

Jane Nalunga, the Executive Director at SEATINI Uganda reiterated that as a country, we need to carefully protect our policy space to achieve aspirations enshrined in the Africa Mining Vision.

According to Dr. Paul Jourdan, the lead Consultant for the Study, Uganda’s mineral resources could be exploited to underpin resource-based industrialization through the realisation of the mineral linkages.
For his part, the Senior Officer at the Natural Resource Governance Institute, Paul Bagabo stressed that Government of Uganda needs to support the private sector, undertake infrastructure development and negotiation of regionals policies to support the mining sector.

The research will further be validated in other participating countries (Mozambique and Niger) and thereafter a research paper will be disseminated to the wider public and relevant institutions.