At the recent Investing in African Mining Indaba in Cape Town, two fundamental themes were top of mind: prioritizing inclusive local development for sustainable economic growth, and the role of collaboration in unlocking capital and ensuring shared benefits.
Not only is each of these an important area of investigation, but they are interconnected.
Promote inclusive economic growth
Collaboration is fundamental to achieving inclusive local development.
Inclusive local economic development is essential for the sustainability of mining communities and the wider economy.
Conditions in many mining communities make it clear that efforts to develop local economies and create positive social impact are falling short: unemployment remains a major community pressure point, and energy and water insecurity, infrastructure backlogs and weak spatial planning are ongoing barriers.
The mining value chain is not creating jobs at the levels needed to develop meaningfully independent local economies.
The Indaba recognized that achieving change required a transformational approach.
Community involvement and provincial investment incentives, coupled with an increased understanding of domestic benefits, are part of ensuring that mining drives domestic economic growth.
However, none of these can be accomplished in isolation.
Reliance on disparate funding levers such as Social and Labor Planning (SLP) commitments, Corporate Social Investment (CSI), and other socio-economic development (SED) funds creates a fragmented and short-term approach to solving complex, long-term problems.
Fragmentation is not effective: collaboration between business, government, civil society and communities is the only way to bring about change.
Collaboration has become a buzzword in social investment, but we need to move beyond talking about it and start working together to coordinate resources.
In our experience, we have seen a strong desire among social investors to move from compliance-driven, siled interventions to intentional, collaborative approaches.
We are already seeing examples of collaborative efforts with a particular emphasis on investing in inclusive local development.
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need for cooperation
The Indaba highlighted the Impact Finance Network (IFN), through which Anglo American and its partners, Impact Capital Africa and Edge Growth, are identifying innovative, impactful businesses in the region and bringing together a network of investors looking for social investment opportunities.
Taking a regional approach, Shikululu has begun an internal process of working in partnership to define a long-term, structured collaboration model across mining houses operating in the same district.
These companies and their host communities share deep, systemic challenges that cannot be solved through isolated programmatic investments.
Instead, we are working together to find collaborative solutions that work at scale.
Collaboration is not easy, but it is necessary.
Effective cooperation, especially when targeting large-scale issues such as local economic development, depends on good governance and a clear strategy.
This requires all parties to be united on shared outcomes, even if different types of funding and diverse activities are deployed to achieve them.
Inclusive local economic growth is a strategic imperative for South Africa and the mining industry in particular.
Everyone has a role to play, and collaborating strategically to achieve shared goals is the only way to succeed.