ABSTRACT
In Africa, as well as in other regions of the Global South, a common response to the environmental governance challenges posed by artisanal and small-scale mining is to promote the formalisation of the sector. Concomitantly, such responses often include commitments to “sustainable mining” while increasing local content and procurement in mining sectors. Global and regional stakeholder consultation regimes have incorporated the constituent norms of sustainable development and mining sector formalisation and local content, which have influenced new mining legislation including revisions to existing Mining Acts across Africa. Although such norms exhibit some positive attributes and a welcome increase in the agency of African state actors, the on-the-ground impact has been minimal. Adopting an Agential Constructivist theoretical approach to analyse author-conducted fieldwork and participant observations – as well as other primary sources collected by the authors – this chapter illustrates this gap between policy and practice by providing an in-depth analysis of a contemporary stakeholder consultation regime of relevance to Africa’s mining sector: the Climate Smart Mining Initiative (CSMI).
