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"Digging for Peace" International Conference discusses issues on Private Companies and Emerging Economies in Zones of Conflict

About 120 participants, amongst them representatives of research institutes, private companies, civil society as well as politicians accepted the invitation by the Bonn International Center for Conversion (BICC) and the Fatal Transactions campaign to talk about the challenges of Private Companies and Emerging Economies in Zones of Conflict on the occasion of an international conference which takes place from 21 to 22 November 2008 in Bonn. The two-day event, entitled: “Digging for Peace: Private Companies and Emerging Economies in Zones of Conflict” at the Deutsche Welle is supported by Stiftung Internationale Begegnung of the Sparkasse Bonn, the European Union and Oxfam Novib.

This year's? Annual Fatal Transactions Conference will take place in Bonn. Fatal Transactions member BICC (Bonn International Center for Conversion) will be hosting this two-day event. With this conference, Fatal Transactions brings together important stakeholders in the debate on natural resources and conflict. “Germany is an important economic player in our debate as the German industry consumes large amounts of minerals. Not all of the minerals come from peaceful countries and are generated through economically sound investments. Therefore, Germany should play a postive and leading role in making the mining sector more transparent and more sustainable”, Anneke Galama, the International Coordinator of the Fatal Transactions campaign, states.

The conferencewill offer a platform for analyzing the current status quo of resource extraction in (potential) conflict areas by presenting case studies of current hot spots in Africa such as Chad, Liberia, Côte d'Ivoire and Sudan. Although companies increase their efforts in positively engaging in post-conflict dynamics, they often are also part of the problem as they become an actor in the conflict instead of a promoter of peace.

In the panel “Investing for peace: Doing business in (post-)conflict areas” Adolf Kloke-Lesch (Director General for the Department on Global and Sectoral Policies; European and Multilateral Development Policy; Africa; Middle East, German Federal Ministry for Economic Co-operation and Development) will give an overview about Germany’s development agenda. The Hon. Festus Mogae (former President of Botswana) will speak about resource governance in Botswana. “Botswana has established a number of watchdog institutions in order to ensure transparency in the use of public funds, prevent and fight corruption, as well as to ensure that the award of public tenders is not tainted by any irregular practices”, Mogae explaines.

The Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), which will be represented at the conference by its chair Peter Eigen, stresses: “Three and a half billion people live in countries rich in oil, gas and minerals. With good governance the exploitation of these resources can generate large revenues to foster economic growth and reduce poverty. However when governance is weak, such resources endowments may result in poverty, corruption, and conflict.”

Private sector perspectives in preventing conflict and re-building war-torn societies will be given by Andrew Bone (Head of Government Relations, De Beers Group), John O’Reilly (former Senior Vice President for External Affairs, BP, Indonesia), Philip M Sigley (Chief Executive, The Federation of Cocoa Commerce) and Salil Tripathi (Senior Policy Adviser, International Alert).

Recently, the most prominent group of mining companies entering the African resource and mining market has been coming from China. Therefore, the emerging role of China in Africa’s resource extractive business will be the main topic of the second day of the conference.

The rich resource endowment of African countries and the growing needs of emerging economies, especially China and India, for raw materials provide a fertile ground for a win-win South-South relationship. However, the risks for this relationship to become asymmetric, imbalanced, and estranged are also immense given the lack of capacity in many resource-rich African countries to take advantage of opportunities and minimize threats presented by the growing presence of these emerging economies. Specifically, this lack of capacity manifests itself in many areas, including the capacity to make and implement sound policies, to manage resource revenues, to regulate multinational companies, and to diversify local economies. “Thus, emerging economies, particularly China and India, while pursuing their interests in Africa need to play a constructive role in helping build institutional capacity and governance capacity in their host countries”, Bo Kong, Director, Global Energy and Environment Initiative, underlines.


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