Governance, Security & Human Rights

  West Africa Mining Host Communities Indaba. Theme - Contextualizing Green Mining Within Free, Prior, and Informed Consent! Date – Wednesday 24 to Friday 26 September 2025     In-Person Registration     Virtual Registration   West Africa is replete with critical minerals (including gold, iron ore, bauxite, lithium, cobalt, uranium, etc.) which are essential to both traditional industries and the acceleration of global energy transition. While some of these minerals (for example – coal) are best left unexploited because of the unavailability of technology to effectively harness them, and their negative environmental and social impacts, the effective governance of the extraction of other minerals hold the potential to transform the nations that make up the subregion by driving socioeconomic and infrastructural development, and providing them with the leverage that they need to overcome decades of underdevelopment. Yet, the lived realities of host communities across the 16 states of the subregion contradict this promise. Instead of shared prosperity, mining has too often resulted in environmental degradation, exacerbated climate change, deepened inequity, displaced indigenous communities, and aggravated social unrest. Furthermore, the buzz around green energy transition is growing as demand for critical minerals (like lithium and cobalt for batteries) increases, presenting both opportunities […]