At a media briefing hosted by Investing in African Mining Indaba in Sandton on 1 September to explore the role played by partnerships in shaping the future of African mining, the main message was, in addition to strengthening relationships with governments and the private sector, emphasis will also be put on building and maintaining relationships with stakeholders such as civil society, traditional leaders, universities and mining chambers.
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Investing in African Mining Indaba is an annual event bringing together all stakeholders within the mining industry to discuss strategies that can move the mining sector forward.
“It is time we made a concerted effort to strengthen our relationship with the ‘conscience of society’ so that we can pay proper attention to issues outside of only making profit.
“This is important as mining is one of the most scrutinised industries because of the level of interaction with communities and societies at large,” said Kwasi Ampofo, advisory board member at Investing in African Mining Indaba and head of metals and mining at commodity markets research firm BloombergNEF.
He said this is important because mining needs to increase its association with sectors of society which are not motivated solely by the imperative of making profit.
“They serve as the gateway to communities, which is important to us as we are creating the social licence to operate.”
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Traditional leaders can be very important partners as they can help with taking the message back to the communities, said Ampofo.
“This year we took the first step when we invited some traditional leaders in South Africa, and for next year’s event we hope to extend this and reach out to traditional leaders beyond South Africa.”
Universities are an important constituency as this is where future leaders in the mining industry are trained. “The future of Africa really rests with them with the skills that they are developing. This year we already had an exciting programme working with PhD students giving them an opportunity to be on a big stage.
“For next year we plan to go a step further and work with universities on a larger scale,” said Ampofo, adding that this will also be accompanied by working with research institutions, “so that they can also help us to scale the next generation of leaders for Africa.
He said the Investing in African Mining Indaba team is also looking at building strong relationships with mining chambers, particularly throughout the continent.
“Pretty much every major mining country in Africa has as a chamber. We want to be able to work with our constituents to really understand the mood in the industry, the temperature of the industry.”
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African countries have a lot of leverage because they own vast amounts of mineral resources. The Investing in African Mining Indaba event is a powerful platform to enable African mining to use that leverage, by unlocking the power of partnerships, said Ampofo. The platform enables the African mining industry to speak in one voice to advance its fortunes.
“We believe the time is now that we use our platform to help cultivate African roles in the mining industry. We want to use Mining Indaba 2026 as a platform to build and also repair those relationships that have been allowed to break down. Overall this is the industry platform to elevate Africa’s role in the world, through unlocking the power of partnerships.