Regulatory Framework Review and Mining Regime Reform in Mali: Degrees of Rupture and Continuity

Abstract

For several mineral-rich African countries, the 1980s marked the beginning of an important series of regulatory, institutional and economic reforms. The objective of these reforms was the stimulation of economic growth and the alleviation of poverty through the development of an extractive industry based on private and predominantly foreign investments. The soundness of these strategies, which had a profound impact on the nature of mining policies and economic development, is now being questioned and sometimes even criticized. While there is no doubt that foreign direct investment has increased and that macroeconomic indicators have improved in a number of these countries, the positive effects of the reforms in terms of social and economic development for the populations concerned are far less obvious. In this context, several initiatives were implemented in recent years to improve the mining sector’s contribution to the sustainable development of economies endowed with mineral wealth and to the living conditions of the African populations affected.¹ The reforms advocated by the different initiatives focused primarily on the following: transparency in the implementation of regulatory frameworks and the distribution of monetary flows; consultations with civil society; the diversification of mineral resources; the integration of mining activities into the domestic economy; institutional capacity building; the promotion and oversight of small-scale mining; national participation, both private and public, in extractive activities; as well as an increase in the social and environmental monitoring of mineral exploration and extraction activities.