Consideration of the Draft Statute of the African Minerals

Development Centre

Before examining the Statute itself, Member States made the following
general comments related to the Statute:
- The Action Plan of the African Mining Vision should inform the
sustainability process of the AMDC;
- While recognizing the assistance from partners, Africa’s agenda
should be adhered;
- Countries bidding to host international institutions should be aware of
the risk that ultimately they may be relying on national funding for the
operation of the institution;
- Clarification was sought on whether a study had been carried out on
Centres of Excellence as instructed by the Bureau and also whether
a Memorandum of Understanding had been prepared to be annexed
to the Statute for cooperation between SEAMIC and AMDC;
- The AMDC should help the continent to coordinate resources
received from partners;
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In response to the issues raised, the AUC responded as follows:

- The need to ensure consistency of language between the AMV,
Action Plan and sustainability of AMDC will be taken on board;
- With regard to comments made on funding of institutions by bidding
countries, the AUC’s approach is pragmatic based on experience;
when Member States take ownership to finance institutions, efforts
are made not to rely solely on resources from partners, But also to
leverage resources from the private sector and industry; the core
funding is sourced from Member States and any supplementary
mobilization of resources in done in such a way that Member States
have a right to be informed and to approve in a transparent manner;
- With regard to the study on Centres of Excellence on mineral
resources, the Commission presented a summary of information and
is yet conduct a comprehensive study; in this regard, clear guidance
 from Member States would be welcome and the key challenge and
issue of lack of internal capacity could be taken into consideration;
- On the issue of an MoU between SEAMIC and AMDC, the focus is to
carry out the study first on all centres, and then recommend
measures of collaboration with AMDC;

Recommendation
The meeting recommended that:
- in view of the fact that mining is central to development, the AUC
should not limit itself to coordination but also work on substance, a
Division of Mining should be created at the AU Commission;
- Member States could support the initiative of PAMUST since it does
not require any financial obligation from them and in addition a
proposal was made to decentralize the institution through some
satellite branches in other countries.

The meeting then examined the draft Statute of the AMDC and made the
appropriate amendments. The revised Statute is attached as Annex II.