Community Participation in Natural Resources Governance: An Exposition of the Outcomes of Alternative Mining Indabas in Zimbabwe

“Zimbabwe`s mining sector continues to be touted as the anchor and backbone to country’s economic growth and poverty reduction initiatives.
Despite the potential of the mining sector to contribute to economic development,
the sector is presently causing untold suffering to the local communities living adjacent to mining operations.
Some of the problems affecting mining communities include issues of forced evictions
and relocations of communities from their traditional lands without free and prior informed consent
and lack of fair and adequate compensation in order to pave way for mining activities.
These irregular relocations and resettlements have been done and continue to be done without government
and the mining companies recognizing local communities as an important stakeholder in the mining sector.
This situation is leaving a lot of poor men, women and children suffering from loss of agricultural and grazing lands,
thereby, threatening their food security and livelihoods.
The situation is even worse for rural women as they are heavily dependent on subsistence agriculture for their livelihoods.
Furthermore, mining activities continue to cause environmental degradation, siltation of rivers,
water and air pollution that affect their lives related to extractives.

The above scenario sets a clear justification for convening Alternative Mining Indabas
as open platforms for mining affected communities to discuss the impacts of mining on their livelihoods,
rights and environment with the government and the mining companies.
This paper thus serves as an expose of the major outcomes from all alternative mining Indabas held in Zimbabwe in 2014.”

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