The Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Amendment Bill of 2013 (MPRD-AB) has generated fresh debate regarding the appropriate system for allocating mineral prospecting and mining rights in South Africa. The draft bill no longer specifies that mining rights are to be allocated according to the first-in, first-assessed (FIFA) principle.

This paper, which focuses on the Chinyanja Triangle (CT), an area inside the Zambezi River Basin, characterises three distinct farming subsystems across rainfall gradients, namely maize-beans-fish, sorghum-millet-livestock and the livestock-dominated subsystem. It presents the socioeconomic characteristics, historical drivers of change, resources use and management (water, land, forestry) and the institutional disincentives affecting agricultural production and productivity in the region.

Mining has not always had good press in the development arena, due to a history of inadequate environmental and social governance. This short paper argues that there is enormous opportunity to be had in including women in mining operations. The author looks at how International Finance Corporations’ (IFC) Gender Program was able to implement strategies to help two IFC mining clients better integrate women into their operations. The author highlights how in so doing, IFC has contributed to the clients’ sustainability objectives and to improved performance through greater gender diversity.

Among the most daunting constraints mining has been facing is that it is a

This online database provides information on the organisations, people and places that make up the complex mining industry of the D.R.C. It plots the country’s significant mines and exploration zones, and asks who owns the rights to, and means of production. This is part of a series of reports mapping ownership of extractive industries across Africa.

In this paper the author takes a ‘political settlements’ approach to examining the political effects of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in developing countries. The political settlements approach uses an integrated understanding of politics, power and institutional forms to explain how, given different political processes and incentives, the same institutional forms can produce different economic and developmental outcomes.

This report documents human rights abuses linked to efforts to control two key gold mining areas, Mongbwalu (Ituri District) and Durba (Haut Uélé District) in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).Findings of the report include:competition to control the gold mines and trading routes has spurred the bloody conflict that has gripped this area since the start of the Congolese war in 1998 and continues to the presentafter 2003 two armed groups, one backed by Uganda and the other by Rwanda, fought for the control of gold-mining areas and trade routeseach group won a gold-rich area but battles

Report highlighting how poor communities in Obuasi, Ghana are suffering environmental pollution and social problems apparently as a result of gold mining activity. It examines how rivers and streams have been polluted with arsenic, iron, manganese and heavy metals from past gold mining activities by Anglo American’s subsidiary, AngloGold Ashanti (AGA) and its predecessor, Ashanti Goldfields Corporation (AGC).According to the report AGA is failing to report its activities accurately to shareholders and the public and some of these failures are serious.

This report addresses the environmental and human rights situation faced by villagers and migrant workers in Shwegyin township of Nyaunglebin District, Pegu Division, Burma.

How have Latin American countries been using Environmental Impact Assessments in order to build more sustainable extractive industries? A focus on Peru provides some interesting lessons.

Is it possible to develop extractive industries while preserving the environment? Several Latin American countries have been attempting to improve the environmental sustainability of their extractive industry sectors by developing their legal frameworks, in particular through the use and adaptation of the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) tool.

This final report presents the findings of the two year IIED MMSD [minerals, mining and sustainable development] project sponsored by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD). It outlines in detail the MMSD multistakeholder process - which included regional patnerships, national projects, global workshops and a range of commissioned research, presentations and bulletins - before presenting a detailed analysis of the sector through the many stages of minerals and metals exploration, production, use, reuse, recycling, and final disposal.

This paper examines how states that rely on oil and mineral exports address the concerns of the poor. Its central finding is that oil and mineral dependence are strongly associated with unusually bad conditions for the poor.