By Kodjo Adams
Accra, Nov.28, GNA – Dr Yaw Graham, Coordinator of Third World Network (TWN)-Africa, an NGO, says the organisation and its partners have fostered deeper public scrutiny of mining activities in the country.
He said TWN-Africa had played a key role in the transformation of public awareness and attitudes on minerals and development issues in Ghana.
Dr Graham said this at a public lecture in Accra on the theme: “TWN-Africa at 30: Organising for Equitable and Transformative Policies.”
Dr Graham emphasised TWN-Africa’s role in transforming how Ghanaians evaluated the activities in the mining sector, shifting from a focus on foreign direct investment and export revenues to a more comprehensive cost-benefit analysis.
Dr Graham said since the country’s first wave of mining sector privatisation and the granting of concessions to transnational corporations, official narratives often celebrated economic gains while overlooking critical social and environmental costs.
Dr Graham underscored the importance of TWN-Africa’s partnerships in advancing its advocacy efforts.
He cited the organisation’s collaboration with the National Coalition of Mining, formed in 2001, as instrumental in amplifying the voices of affected communities.
Partnerships with key organisations like WACAM and the Centre for Public Interest Law provided TWN-Africa with grassroots insights into the challenges faced by communities in mining-intensive regions such as the Wassa West District.
Dr Graham reiterated TWN-Africa’s broader mission of advancing equitable and sustainable mining policies not only in Ghana but across Africa.
“TWN-Africa’s work has contributed to creating a framework for scrutinising the mining sector’s impact while promoting accountability and inclusivity in resource governance,” he said.
Dr Rose Mensah Kutin, Executive Director, ABANTU for Development, commended TWN-Africa for creating the platform to engage stakeholders to discuss issues of sustainable development.
She said TWN-Africa had worked with the small-scale miners in shaping policies to position them to negotiate better conditions of service.
Mr Charles Abugre, Executive Director, International Development Economics Associates, lauded TWN-Africa’s achievements in the mining space and called on the authorities to move away from the dependence of raw commodities for export by adding value to these raw resources.
He expressed worry about the overreliance on importation of food, which he described as “suicide.”
The TWN-Africa’s 30th anniversary public lecture focused on the organisation’s contributions over the past 30 years to citizens’ struggles for equitable and transformative policies and offered perspectives on some of the current issues on Ghana’s development and policy agenda.
Established in 1994, TWN-Africa has made contributions to organising marginalised groups to raise their interests in both the local and international policy arenas.
GNA