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Chapter 7 - Minerals and Mining
7-01 Overview
There is dangerous assymetry in government and governance. Bad governance will always result in bad performance, but good governance on its own does not assure good performance. Many other elements are needed in order to have an effective enabling environment.
Overview
Mining and the exploitation of minerals in the “south” ought to be generating a lot of wealth for the “south”. It will do so when the agreements are fully understood by all parties, especially the signers for the “south” and there is a solid framework for value analysis.
It is not clear what role bribery and corruption plays in the sector, but it is probably significant. It is likely that substantial fund flows do not benefit the country but only benefit individuals. This is difficult to address, because the amounts involved are huge. Without addressing this, however, the wealth creation that is possible will never materialize.
The international mining companies are at an interesting stage, and they are likely to have some advantage when they are seen to be of benefit to the local communities where they operate. This is not an easy balance to achieve, because large scale mining causes a lot of change ... but it is possible, and could result in mining being pulled to communities rather than having to be pushed into the communities by the mining companies and a small elite.
There is every reason to expect that Iraq has mineral deposits that could be exploited on a more commercial basis. The knowledge about the mineral deposits in Iraq is not well substantiated. Much of the information is old and not supported by verifiable geological reports. There has been little exploitation of the mineral resources in Iraq.
Iraq has little capacity to do the work needed to provide a basis for a rational exploitation of the mineral wealth of the country.
The administration in Iraq should be supported so that better knowledge about the mineral resources in the area can be obtained. The knowledge gap should be closed as soon as possible with thorough geological analysis of the main mineral deposits.
Policy about mineral resource exploitation
The administration should be supported in work to establish a policy framework so that the exploitation of mineral resources is fair to all concerned and contributes to peace, security and economic development rather than having a destabilizing influence.
Training in mining skills
In order for the minerals and mining sector to succeed there needs to be basic skills training on a substantial scale. If there are exploitable minerals then there should be skills training to complement the other resources needs for successful industry development.
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