Guinea Shows Improvement, Promise in Mining Governance
A new evaluation highlights a positive trajectory for Guinea since 2017 Resource Governance Index findings were released.
- New evaluation highlights positive trajectory since 2017 Resource Governance Index findings
The information comes from NRGI’s evaluation of evolutions in Guinea’s mining governance during the period of 2017 and 2018. This study uses the same methodology as the Resource Governance Index (RGI), the latest complete edition of which NRGI published in 2017. According to the new 2019 interim evaluation, Guinea’s new overall score increases from 44 to 56 points out of 100, which places the country in the index’s next-highest performance band.
NRGI observed notable progress in the “value realization” component of the index, which concerns the governance of extractive activities in a manner that creates value for countries. NRGI reported that Guinea’s “revenue management” component also improved. Among the most remarkable advancements are:
- Greater transparency in the process of allocating mining licenses after the publication of a mining cadastre on guinee.cadastreminier.org and regular publication of mining conventions on contratsminiersguinee.org
- Launch of a quarterly publication on mining statistics by the Ministry of Mines and Geology
- Regular publication of audited annual reports with increasing levels of detail by the state-owned enterprise SOGUIPAMI, and its inclusion in the scope of Guinea’s Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) reports
- More regular disclosure of disaggregated data on public finances and the budget, including actual and projected mining revenues by the Ministry of Budget and the Ministry of Economy and Finances.
The mining sector, and bauxite in particular, is increasingly important for the Guinean economy. From 2016 to 2017, revenues from the sector have grown by 46 percent and their contribution to the national budget has increased from 25 to 32 percent, according to EITI reports.
In this context, NRGI suggested that the government and other stakeholders can further strengthen mining governance, in particular in the “revenue management” component. The areas for improvement are:
- Effective implementation of the national fund for local development (“Fonds national de développement local,” or FNDL), which represents an important part of budgets of all municipalities in the country
- Completion of the law on disclosures of beneficial ownership and the disclosure of financial interests in mining licenses of government and high public officials, in order to demonstrate the absence of conflicts of interest
- Disclosure of data in machine-readable formats to reinforce systematic disclosure of official statistics on the mining sector and facilitate their use
- Publication of the legal framework and the annual progress reports on the implementation of ECOWAS’ macroeconomic convergence criteria
The progress Guinea achieved in 2017 and 2018 is due for the most part to implementation of legislation, which has led to substantial narrowing of the gap measured by researchers between resource governance rules and actual practice, from 32 to 15 points.
“The gap between laws and practices is a major resource governance challenge everywhere in Africa,” said Hervé Lado, NRGI’s country manager in Guinea. “Implementation of rules on sharing of mining revenues with municipalities is ongoing, including related mechanisms for transparency, accountability and discipline in revenue management at the local level, and auditing of these subnational revenue flows. This represents an historic opportunity for Guinea to considerably reduce the remaining ‘implementation gap,’ and to allow Guineans to directly benefit from mineral exploitation.”
To prepare for its new publication, NRGI engaged in consultations with the Ministries of Mines and Geology, Budget, and Economy and Finances. These consultations led to the development of an action plan to take stock of Guinea’s progress in mining governance and address the challenges identified in the evaluation, so that Guinea can continue moving to higher levels of governance in the future worldwide RGI editions.
“Strengthening the mining sector's impact on socio-economic development has been at the heart of the Guinean government’s reforms since 2011,” said Abdoulaye Magassouba, Guinea’s Minister for Mines and Geology. “Building on unprecedented progress over the past eight years, the Guinean government remains strongly mobilized to continue and expand its efforts to make the mining sector an effective lever for transforming the national economy. I therefore look forward to our successful collaboration with NRGI as it is in line with the promotion and improvement of the governance of the mining sector.”
For further information about this interim evaluation contact:
Hervé Lado
Country Manager for Guinea
Natural Resource Governance Institute
[email protected]
Notes to editors:
- The interim evaluation of the RGI for 2019 in Guinea is available in English on www.resourcegovernance.org/analysis-tools/publications/resource-governance-index-2019-interim-guinea-mining and French on www.resourcegovernance.org/analysis-tools/publications/indice-gouvernance-ressources-guinee-2019 . The underlying data and justifications can be accessed in French on https://www.resourcegovernanceindex.org/about/interim-updates.
- The authors of the evaluation, Hervé Lado, country manager for Guinea at NRGI in Conakry, and Kaisa Toroskainen, Africa program officer at NRGI in Accra, are available to comment on this publication.
- This interim evaluation has been published only for Guinea and its results are not comparable to the scores of other countries included in the previous editions of the Resource Governance Index.
- The Resource Governance Index (RGI) is a global assessment of extractive industry governance in 81 countries, published in 2017. Its results and other information is available on www.resourcegovernanceindex.org