Agreement will standardize African mining codes

African mining ministers have agreed to standardize mining codes across the continent in an effort to attract greater foreign investment.

Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, the South African minister of minerals and energy, told Johannesburg-based Business Report that the African Mining Partnership (AMP), as it is known, will be established within a year.

The AMP is expected to lend its support to the plan known as New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD), which was crafted by the presidents of Algeria, Egypt, Nigeria, Senegal and South Africa to engage industrialized countries in the fight against African poverty.

The AMP will appoint five members to lobby Canada to ensure mining is identified as a means of eradicating poverty.

The Nepad model requires $64 billion per year in investment, or more than four times the value of aid to Africa in 1999, and seven times the flow of foreign direct investment in 2000.