Start: 18/05/2011 - 9:56am

End: 20/05/2011 - 5:00pm

City:

Dar es Salaam

Location within the city:

Ubungo plaza

HakiMadini, with the support from Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, is looking forward to host the Tanzania National Mining Symposium on 18-20th of May 2011. The symposium will be held in Dar es Salaam, with intention of bringing together 70 representatives from different institutions involved in Tanzania’s extractive industry. Participants will include Civil Society, Government, Members of Parliament, Local Government Authorities, Media, Academics and rural communities impacted by the mining investment.

It will also support cross learning between peers by bringing activists from Zambia, Ghana, Mozambique and Uganda to share their experiences on the sector.

HakiMadini is a non profit making organization working towards a just, fair and transparent mineral resource use control and management in Tanzania. We aim to achieve this by strengthening the capacities of small scale miners and communities to engage and benefit from the mineral wealth governance as well as defending and promoting basic human rights Structure of Meeting

Day 1 will focus on capacity building with the aim to understand the legal-policy structure governing the mining regime in Tanzania. It will look also at Constitutional obligation and rights in relation to resource governance, opportunities and barriers found in the current legal framework, environmental and land protection mechanism as well revisit parliamentary powers in ensuring good utilization of resources.

Day 2 will be covering the specific developmental questions facing Tanzania’s Mining Sector: Challenges of integrating mining sector into National and Regional economies, Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative (EITI) and mining community struggles and African Peers experiences.

Day 3 will be devoted to discussing the role of media in sector development, ongoing capacity building processes in strengthening extractive industry development.

Overview
Tanzania is currently the fourth leading producer of gold in Africa, behind South Africa, Ghana and surpassed more recently Mali. Tanzania boasts of having a gold deposit reserve of about 45 million ounces with an annual depletion rate of 1.6 million ounces per year. It happens also to be the only source in the world of the famous tanzanite gemstone as well as producer of diamond.

However, Tanzania ranks among the 10 poorest countries in the world with per capital income of about US$300 per year and a third of the population living below poverty level. Mining contribution to GDP is still small at average of 3.5 per cent, mining sector has been the fastest growing sector over the last 5 years in Tanzania only rivaled by the information and communication sector.
The minimal contribution and lack of linkages between mining sector and national economy have been a major discussion within national policy forums as well as academic. There are various challenges faced by the sector in terms of environment management, human rights protection, land evictions and structures which are seen as leaving out most Tanzanians.

It is in the light of these debates; the Government initiated legal policy reforms which resulted into New Mineral Policy 2009 and Mining Act 2010.There is high hopes that the new law may improve negative impacts seen under the old law. It is the intention of this gathering to see how far we have moved forward since the new law has come into being and challenges ahead for the nation.
This symposium is a continuation of Regional Level Community Forums held in Mwanza and Arusha in 2010.HakiMadini sees the opportunity in creating open dialogue and learning between key actors in the mining sector as we push forward reforms with the interest of the country and the people at the heart  

Purpose of meeting
The purpose of the national mining symposium is to:  
•    Re-visit and analyze the natural resources governance highlighting the potential benefit to communities and the country as a whole. It will also look at the capacity of Tanzanian people to explore the constitutional guarantees in enjoying their share and space in natural resources governance.
•    Create a stronger alliance  for mining community to:
o    Provide input into the sector governance on issues of community, small-scale artisanal mining, fiscal framework, EITI and linkages.
o    Articulate and share perspectives on the global policy dynamics and its impacts on mineral dependent economies.
o    Provide input in determining the terms of mining investment, Environment and Human Rights in Tanzania.  
•    Provide space for shared perspectives and strengthening networking relations.
Expected Outputs
The following outputs are expected:
•    Shared analysis and understanding of the existing legal-policy structures, processes and its implication to Tanzanians.
•    Shared knowledge based on real practical situations at the grassroots and national level plus gain experience from its peers in other regions such as Zambia, Ghana, Uganda and Mozambique.
•    Adopt a strong civil society and community position on current gaps in the Mining Act 2010.
•    An advocacy strategy developed on meeting outcomes, in particular to influence the new constitution with the view of promoting pro-people mining investments.

For more info: daudi_redman@hakimadini.org