MIGA plans major involvement in DRC mining industry
7 September 2006
The head of the extractive industries unit for the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA), the World Bank’s political risk insurance arm, has expressed an interest in scaling up its portfolio in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s mining industry from its present $20.8 million to $500 million within three years.
This planned rapid increase in support for private mining companies in the DRC is a major cause for concern considering the destructive impacts that mining projects have had on the country’s people and forests and the role that mineral extraction has played in perpetuating the country’s brutal civil war. World Bank Group involvement in the DRC since the official end of the war has focused on boosting private sector activity.
Lending has been conditioned upon the revision of the country’s mining, forest and investment codes, aimed to increase foreign investment in mineral and timber extraction. In absence of effective government oversight and management capacity, this emphasis on increased investment has allowed the country’s mineral-rich areas to be effectively carved up by foreign companies with little regard for benefits to the Congolese public, the rights of local communities, or protection of the environment.
In a country still recovering from a war linked to competition over its mineral wealth, and where the government has limited means and capacity to manage and mitigate the impacts of mining, MIGA’s intention to scale up its support for mining companies poses serious risks to people and the environment.