Author(s): John S Ombella

Abstract: Food insecurity in most African Countries is a common concern. Although a number of factors such as; climate change and internal conflicts contributes towards food insecurity situation, mining activities exacerbate the same especially to communities surrounding mines. This is even true when most African governments seem to favour investment in extraction sector than preservation of human rights, such as right to food. Notably, such countries do not have robust legal frameworks that could guarantee food security to communities neighbouring mines. Consequently, presence of mines threatens food security through land dispossession, degradation, draining agricultural man power to mining instead and population surge that impacts food availability to name but a few. The African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (1986) (African Charter) contains principles relevant to protect food security to such communities. To curb this problem, African countries are required to uphold human rights under the African charter in their extractive sectors legal frameworks. The aim of this study is to examine the extent to which selected African countries’ mining legal frameworks guarantee food security to communities in the vicinity of mines. In order to achieve this, the paper carries out a comparative documentary review of the extractive sector related codes from three countries namely; Botswana, Tanzania and Ghana with the view to identify the extent to which food security is safeguarded. It is shown that, there is varying trend of narrow, wide and wider protection of food security in the extractive sector of selected countries. The wider trend is expected to influence the legal frameworks of mineral resources-rich African countries, Tanzania inclusive.

Pages: 19-27 | Views: 609 | Downloads: 198

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