At the Alternative Mining Indaba held in February in Cape Town, South Africa, Deprose Muchena, Board Chairperson of Southern Africa Resource Watch (SARW), cited the extractive industry’s legacy of human rights abuses and environmental violations, long coupled with exclusion and underdevelopment of affected communities. Introducing SARW’s new mobile reporting application, African Mining Accountability Platform (AMAP), he said: “We cannot continue to witness a paradox where nations rich in natural resources remain poor in human development. This platform is a step towards ensuring that communities benefit from the resources they rightfully own.”

According to the International Energy Agency, fossil fuels and minerals accounted for over a third of exports from about 60% of African nations in 2019. With more than 30% of the global reserves of the critical minerals needed to power the shift to a low-carbon economy, Africa is well placed to benefit from a clean energy future. But will it be a just transition for the communities where mining companies are based? Accountability Console data shows that the sector has triggered the third most complaints to independent accountability mechanism (IAMs) in the last 30 years. Yet even this may be underreported, given the many obstacles to communities successfully filing complaints. 

What’s in an app?

AMAP offers those living in mining-affected areas a cutting-edge tool to raise their voices against harm incurred—in real-time, geotagged detail, using a free phone app. The digital interface is attractive and user-friendly, and it’s specifically designed to log and report incidents such as environmental or labor rights violations via media such as photos, videos, voice notes, and other uploaded documentation. The app comes preloaded with a database of mining companies active in Africa, which will be constantly updated. Anyone with an account—rights advocates, government officials, researchers, mining executives and locals—will be able to obtain a snapshot of a specific company's social and environmental performance, as well as any incidents reported.

Monica Mbugua, Research & Policy Officer/Project Officer with SARW, characterizes AMAP as a “civic infrastructure tool” that’s much more than just an app. Crucially, she emphasizes, the goal is not to “name and shame” offenders. Following an incident report, companies are allowed a set grace period to respond and remediate before incidents go public on the app. But being featured within the app also provides an opportunity for companies to showcase their best practices. Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) ratings displayed on the company pages are based on the responsible mining standards laid out by the GRI Standards and the International Council on Mining and Metals.

Connecting grassroots complaints to grievance redress

Since the February launch, SARW has been engaging communities in mining areas, beginning with training programs on best practices to use AMAP in South Africa, and plans to expand to Zambia, Zimbabwe, Gabon, DRC Congo, Namibia, and Madagascar within 2025. An initial goal is to log 500 incident reports across the continent. And as this database is being built through community-led reporting, according to Mbugua, “It will reduce the burden of access for formal complaint mechanisms, because now you have real complaints coming from the ground.” She adds that AMAP provides a way for communities to structure their data with timelines and incident histories, so if and when they submit complaints to IAMs or other mechanisms, they have a head start on providing evidence of harm—which will already have been verified by community monitors with the support of SARW.

For mining-affected communities, AMAP could prove invaluable in this regard as a tool of empowerment, and help redress the balance of power with international mining corporations. As one trainee in a recent session run by SARW declared, “They say we exaggerate. But when we upload pictures, they can’t ignore us. Now we have a place to keep our evidence—and power to act on it.”