Mining & Trade News

A civil society group, the Institute for Sustainable Development (ISD), says the mining sector in Malawi is performing badly on issues of human and environmental protection rights, which are fundamental aspects on international market standards.

Speaking at the national dialogue workshop on Mandatory Environmental and Human Rights Due Diligence in Lilongwe, ISD Executive Director Godfrey Mfiti said minerals that are irresponsibily extracted cannot attract international investment as they lose the trust of foreign businesses.

Mfiti said there is a need for the country to have a regulatory framework on human and environmental protection case like other African countries because it attracts foreign investment as the investors easily trust businesses that cause no harm to both humans and the environment.  

He said: “We are doing badly and this is a threat to the mining industry because if we have irresponsible production it means our minerals would not attract the market.”

“The market in western countries willing to buy our minerals want products which are ethically produced, with its value chain respecting human rights and environmental protection.”

“We are in a crisis whereby we need to balance business and development against environmental pollution and we need to make sure that in each and every stage we comply with basic human rights standards and basic environmental protection regulations.”

Mfiti stressed the need to have a set of regulations such as mandatory human rights and due diligence in place in order to attract the right investors.

 He said there are increased cases of rights violation through poor waste management, poor land negotiation deals and pollution. Mfiti, therefore, said having a regulatory structure and legal framework would be a preventative measure of the harmful practices.

“Having mandatory environmental and human rights due diligence in place is a way to go rather than having reactive regulations where they wait for a crisis to happen to react,” Mfiti said.

In her keynote address on behalf of the Solicitor General, Senior Deputy Director for Human Rights in the Solicitor General’s office Angela Tamanda Kaunda asked for mutual support in championing the development of a Made-in-Malawi Mandatory Environmental and Human Rights Due Diligence legal framework-one that is constitutionally sound, pragmatically enforceable, and forged through the widest possible national consultation.

Kaunda said: “The time for incremental, voluntary steps has passed. The scale of our challenges and the clarity of our constitutional vision demand bold, coherent action.”

“I am therefore, issuing a call for a collective action around five key imperatives including: initiate an inclusive legislative process; prioritize high-impact sectors; anchor access to effective remedy; invest in enforcement capacity; fully integrate with Malawi 2063.”

“It is a pro-good-investment, pro-justice, and pro-Malawi policy. It is the legal instrument that will separate true partners in development from mere extractors of wealth.”

“It is how we ensure that the factories we build do not poison the water our children drink, that the plantations we cultivate do not dispossess the families that have lived In his presentation, Malawi Human Rights Commission (MHRC) Principal Officer Jim Kaunda said core findings from both National Baseline Assessments on Business and Human Rights include challenges in environmental rights.

Kaunda said though Malawi has sufficient legal and policy frameworks to protect human rights including environmental rights, there exist gaps and challenges with regard to the effective enforcement of the existing legal-policy frameworks

He said the majority of businesses operating in Malawi do not have human rights policies in place nor implement human rights due diligence.

Kaunda said: “This has resulted in a number of human rights abuses especially in the agriculture, mining, manufacturing, commercial and hospitality/tourism sectors.”

“Access to remedy is a challenge for Malawians, especially at the judicial level with the courts being inaccessible, non-affordable, and having complicated procedures resulting in cases taking long to be finalized.” In Africa only five countries have operating National Action Plans on business and human rights.

The workshop was organized under the theme; ‘Advancing Corporate Accountability for Environmental and Human Rights Protection in Malawi.’

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