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Abstract
In the 1990s, government authorities in Zimbabwe introduced internationally praised policies to formalize the artisanal and small-scale mining sector, using a combination of district-administered and nationally administered licensing and capacity-building measures. While “decentralization” efforts in the 1990s and early 2000s were hampered by insufficient resource and power transfers, the model was seen by environmental scholars as a source of optimism. However, as economic crisis deepened in the 2000s, national officials (a) revoked the power of Rural District Councils to regulate riverbed alluvial gold panning and (b) increased barriers to formally licensed small-scale primary ore mining. This article examines the recentralization of power in this growing informal sector, exploring how heavy-handed implementation of national reforms contributed to livelihood insecurity. The study emphasizes how national officials invoked “formalization” rationales for mining policy shifts that obscured their underlying political and economic drivers, disempowering local district authorities and deepening the marginalization of informal livelihoods.
Acknowledgments
Thanks go to Louis Putzel, JoAnn McGregor, Liz Watson, Gavin Hilson and Sarah Radcliffe for helpful comments on earlier versions of this work. Finally, thanks go to all the people who participated in the study in the Insiza, Shamva and Kadoma mining areas.
Notes
President of Zimbabwe Local Government Association (ZILGA), ZILGA Office, Harare, May 11, 2009.
Bhatasara (Citation2013) notes that some RDCs, such as the Mutoko RDC, also had power to manage licenses for black granite mining.
Stichting Nederlandse Vrijwilligers—Foundation of Netherlands Volunteers.
Council Member, Insiza RDC, April 24, 2009, Filabusi, Insiza District.
Council Member, Insiza RDC, April 24, 2009, Filabusi, Insiza District.
President of ZILGA, ZILGA Office, Harare, May 11, 2009.
Chief Geologist, Ministry of Mines, May 13, 2009, office of interviewee, Harare, Zimbabwe.
Support was also given by GTZ (Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit—German Technical Cooperation Agency).
United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) (2002): Compendium in best practices in small-scale mining in Africa. United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 29.
Former Secretary of Shamva District Miners Committee, December 10, 2012, home of interviewee, Shamva.
Interview, gold mill owner in Insiza District, May 3, 2009, at a site in the Pangani region of Insiza District; when I asked why nobody was using “the Filabusi Custom Milling Plant,” it was explained that the European Commission-funded project, which initially spent more than US$60,000 on the project, did not train local people to manage the center.
Interview, gold mill owner in Insiza, May 3, 2009.
In 2009, I interviewed a government mining policy advisor with whom I attended a conference in May 2005 in Kadoma that brought together government officials and UN trainers from Tanzania, Zimbabwe, and Sudan. The interviewee recalled optimism surrounding a national government fund called the Mining Industry Loan Fund that offered cash loans for developing small-scale mines, equipment loans, and other types of loans for small-scale miners in Zimbabwe.
As one interviewee noted, “A few of the small-scale miners in Zimbabwe received loans [from a government-managed microloan program] just before the election. It was actually an election motivated decision, to try to show a good face. … In the end I don't think the loans were used for mining equipment like they were supposed to be. Some people got nice cars with those loans … it was not the people who needed the loans.” This view was articulated both in interviews with a mining engineer, Bulawayo, April 30, 2009, and with the Director of Mining Promotion, Ministry of Mines, Harare, Zimbabwe, April 22, 2009.
Group interview with members of a regional small-scale miners association (including a former owner of a gold mining claim near Filabusi, Insiza District), May 3, 2009.
Interview with Alluvial Mining Controller, Insiza RDC, Filabusi, April 24, 2006.
Xinhua, 2007. “Police seizes 41.6 kilograms illegal gold in Zimbabwe,” March 20. http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/200703/20/eng20070320_359146.html (accessed December 2, 2013).
Before the Environmental Management Act (Cap 20:27), EIA processes were governed by the 1997 EIA policy, which made EIAs discretionary for most projects. The government later passed the Environmental Management Act of 2002 and Statutory Instrument 7 of 2007 (EIA and Ecosystems Protection) Regulations, which compelled projects listed under EMA Act CAP 20:27 to undergo EIAs.
This included a US$4,000 fee paid to consultants plus a government EIA registration fee of US$100 in addition to 1.5% of the project cost (paid to the Ministry of Environment and Tourism). Interviews reinforced the sense that the bureaucratic EIA-writing process had little to do with the on-the-ground realities of environmental management.
Interview, senior official (director level), Ministry of Mines, Harare, Zimbabwe, April 22, 2009.
Interview, senior official, Ministry of Mines, Harare, Zimbabwe, April 22, 2009.
Interview, senior official, Ministry of Mines, Harare, Zimbabwe, May 12, 2009.
Some district councillors in Insiza also argued that revenues from future mining projects ought to be directly invested in community programs, adapting revenue models from the much-researched CAMPFIRE (Communal Areas Management Programme for Indigenous Resources) model (Balint and Mashinya Citation2008). As discussed by Alexander and McGregor (Citation2000) and Murombedzi (Citation1999), the CAMPFIRE model also had significant shortcomings, partly as it was never a truly “devolved” governance system (as it did not empower local community governance structures below the RDC level) and partly because it continued to be shaped by highly political interests, generating considerable public discontent and protest in some districts.
Mining companies and the government have been discussing and partially implementing “Community Share Ownership Trusts” since 2012.