Mining is a significant economic activity in most Southern African Development Community (SADC) countries, and mineral beneficiation has been identified and controversially discussed as one of the possibilities for industrialisation. With many member countries being economically too small to muster the human and financial resources which beneficiation requires, the recently adopted Regional Mining Vision (RMV) envisages interventions at a regional level. An opportunity arose to ask industry role players to what extent the SADC appears to support regional beneficiation policy interventions undertaken by member countries, and what the challenges are in undertaking beneficiation regionally, as a complement to, or substitute of country-specific beneficiation policies. Twenty-five semi-structured interviews were conducted with experts from SADC member countries during the 2019 Mining Indaba. Participants were divided on whether beneficiation should be carried out nationally or in the SADC region. While beneficiation could support value-keeping, key challenges were found to be infrastructure development (i.e. energy, water), scarce skills, access to technology and related cost, but also lack of free trade and movement. We submit that a more integrated beneficiation strategy for the SADC region, as is being developed through the RMV, would indeed be relevant in the future. Keywords: Mineral beneficiation, Regional integration, Beneficiation policy interventions, African mining vision, Mining, SADC.
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Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa (BRICS) are the important players of the emerging markets in the global economy and their innovation profiles matter for the economic growth of individual countries and the block. The purpose of this paper is to critically analyse and compare the international rankings in innovation outputs in terms of knowledge and technology outputs among the BRICS-countries in relation to their economic growth in the last two years. A systematic review methodology was used, the innovation topic was investigated from the practice-based problem. Secondary data is collected from sources and institutions that use statistical data to build country rankings produced by the world intellectual property organisation (WIPO) and the World Bank. The findings show China is well-positioned in innovation ranking followed by Russia. Similarities in innovation evolution are observed among the other three BRICS- countries. Although these similarities exist, India portrays a slightly high prospect in innovation because of its information communication technology success, followed by Brazil and South Africa. The findings also show that their GDPs improve with the innovation ranking of the countries. This study recommends the member countries to strengthen their innovation cooperation and to revisit and adapt the education systems to their innovation aspirations through the production of relevant knowledge.
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South Africa needs a sounder mineral beneficiation policy to tackle the challenges the country faces, particularly rising unemployment. Its beneficiation policy is not very demanding and isn’t pursued with any vigour. For example, South Africa should be pursuing trade cooperation with Brazil, Russia, India and China. Together with South Africa they make up the BRICS grouping, which was formed in 2010 with the purpose of pursuing economic development.
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Whilst many stories coming from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in recent years have focussed on the political issues that country has faced, many are now seeing that the case for investing in the country is stronger than ever. The DRC contains significant supplies of a wide range of mineral resources, and is currently a major supplier of diamonds, copper, cobalt, gold, tantalum and tin. In advance of the mining week event in the DRC in June, Elisee Isheloke takes a close look at the investment case for the DRC.
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Reviewing Shame Mugova’s and Paul R. Sachs’ (eds.) Book:
Opportunities and Pitfalls of Corporate Social Responsibility: the Marange Diamond Mines Case Study
Books are a store of knowledge, a vehicle of science and it is not rare to find many which fit the phrase ‘food for thought’, but this book edited by Shame Mugova and Paul R. Sachs is not only illuminating, thought-capturing and rich in context but it transcends the average expectation of academic publications. It’s hard to critique such a great paperback but to perhaps realise that it seldom addresses realities of other countries.
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Abstract
As the use of languages play a critical role in economic activities within the globalized countries’ economies, there are growing perspectives and interests in the relationship between languages and the volume of trade among trading partners. This study looks at one such perspective in the lenses of gravity model, a theory of international trade, that measures the impact of language on trade or Foreign Direct Investment (FDI). The study explores challenges facing Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS) in respect to the impact of language diversity in their trading matters, and the potential of multilingualism in spurting trade within this trading bloc.
The study employs a qualitative approach with the use of exploratory design. The data is based on secondary sources stemming from reports, research, books to policy papers. This study findings show that various trading blocs such as European Union (EU), the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), the West Africa’s Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), with some members of BRICS such as South Africa and China as having adopted multilingualism as a strategy of addressing the language factor in their bilateral trading matters. This study proposes the promotion of multilingualism as a way of mitigating the impact of language barrier in international trade among the BRICS and beyond.
Keywords: Economics of language, Gravity model, Bilateral-trade, Economic
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1. INTRODUCTION
Nigeria has huge geo-resources including gas and is the 10th largest oil reserves in the world (PWC., 2019: 19). It is the first economy of Africa (the most populated country in the continent), but this does not mean the people are out of poverty. The recent violent protests speak volume about the prevailing situation of economic inequality in that country. The petroleum industry makes an insignificant contribution to the economy of Nigeria (+- 10% of the GDP) based on comparisons with other nations. Compared to other petrol states or oil-driven economy such as
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Kuweit (50% of the GDP), Saudi Arabia (42% of the GDP), and UAE (70%) one can say that the impact of oil activities in Nigeria is insignificant (Omoregie, 2016; Uwakonye, Osho and Anucha, 2006; PWC., 2019). As far as Nigeria is concerned, the biggest hindrance to performance in the oil sector is insufficient or the lack of domestic petroleum refining capacity – it is similar to the case of former Zaire (Omoregie, 2016). In both Nigeria and the DRC, the difficulties are not of recent, although the situation is exacerbated by factors such as corruption, maladministration and conflicts (war/terrorism) – similar to the resource curse conundrum.
On the other hand, minerals in the DRC contribute up to 8% on the GDP (Tutalife and Jourdan, 2019) – all the same poorly. And the DRC is among the potentially richest countries in the world on the account of mineral deposits. However, it is also the country where the population live in extreme misery (Gregson, 2018) – below poverty line.
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(kiswahili estas la svahila nomo de lingvo svahila) Verkita de: Elisée Byelongo Isheloke kaj tradukita esperanten de Raita Pyhala (Saliko)
Mi dankas la dekolonizan skipon de la Londona Universitato pro la invito paroli pri tre grava temo, kiun mi konsideras nepra por voko por paco en la mondo, inter homgrupoj kaj por la prizorgado de nia vivmedio. Bonvolu lasi min nomi tiun ĉi prelegon pri interkultura komprenemo kaj kompreniĝo Kiswahili kiel lingvo de paco en naturamika etoso.
Mia prelego havas tri celojn:
La unua, klarigi kial interkultura kompreniĝo pli gravas hodiaŭ ol iam antaŭe;
La dua; montri kiswahili kiel ekzemplon pri tio, kiel lingvo uzeblas por konstrui pacon inter diversaj sektoroj; kaj
La tria, esplori alternativojn kaj lingvajn eblojn solvi niajn nunajn komunikado-problemojn.
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(kiswahili estas la svahila nomo de lingvo svahila) Verkita de: Elisée Byelongo Isheloke kaj tradukita esperanten de Raita Pyhala (Saliko)
Mi dankas la dekolonizan skipon de la Londona Universitato pro la invito paroli pri tre grava temo, kiun mi konsideras nepra por voko por paco en la mondo, inter homgrupoj kaj por la prizorgado de nia vivmedio. Bonvolu lasi min nomi tiun ĉi prelegon pri interkultura komprenemo kaj kompreniĝo Kiswahili kiel lingvo de paco en naturamika etoso.
Mia prelego havas tri celojn:
La unua, klarigi kial interkultura kompreniĝo pli gravas hodiaŭ ol iam antaŭe;
La dua; montri kiswahili kiel ekzemplon pri tio, kiel lingvo uzeblas por konstrui pacon inter diversaj sektoroj; kaj
La tria, esplori alternativojn kaj lingvajn eblojn solvi niajn nunajn komunikado-problemojn.
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Abstract
As the fourth industrial revolution begins and amid an uneven ground of its developmental path, the world sees the realities of digital economy and impact thereof, like never before. Digital economy has influenced the way companies conduct businesses both internally and externally by impinging the life of the most important assets of the company i.e., the informed personnel. Online opportunities have made a significant difference in profit-making and networking of people by impacting their lives economically. Failure to access information, therefore, is detrimental to business networking and marketing as much as it stops the sharing of valuable business information. It is worth noting that the digital economy comes at a price as cybercrimes and political interference counterbalance its positive influence on other aspects of the economy. This paper considers the effect of digital economy as it plays out artisanal gold mining sector in Tanzania and compares it in other African countries.
Keywords: digital economy, digital democracy, digital dictatorship, Tanzania, economic growth
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