Case Study 2 - Community Development in Ghana

After many years of ad-hoc community work, Gold Fields Ghana (GFG) recognised the need to formalise its community programme and after consultation with local communities, The Sustainable Community Empowerment and Economic Development Programme (SEED) was born. Over the next four years SEED’s three pronged approach will aim to:

• increase the income and economic opportunities of the 4,000 households in the 16 primary GFG stakeholder communities through increased cash and food crop production, value addition and processing as well as the creation and expansion of small and medium enterprises

• improve the level of education and livelihood skills of the 5,000 youths and adults residing in the 16 primary stakeholder communities, by placing them in vocational and technical school programmes, through a scholarship programme, and an industrial training and apprenticeship programme for trades related to the mining industry
  
  
• increase the sustainability of SEED interventions for long-term results through the identification and development of larger ventures using redundant mining land and infrastructure and designed to mitigate some of the negative employment impacts of eventual mine closure, through the creation of larger ventures using redundant mining land and infrastructure.

To assist with this vision, GFG has established partnerships with United States Agency for International Development, the Department for International Development, Care, the Food and Agricultural Organisation and the World Health Organisation. Opportunities Industrialisation Centres (OICI), a leading development NGO with over 30 years’ experience in Ghana, is GFG’s partner in the implementation of the SEED programme

Rosemary Noge, Gold Fields’ Sustainable Development Manager, summarised the thinking behind the programme:

"The more than 20-year operational life of Gold Fields Ghana operations provided a great opportunity to participate in the development of host communities to ensure that after mine closure the degree of economic and social dependence on mining has been reduced and that a range of sustainable, viable income generating options will remain."

The beginnings of the SEED programme can be traced back to 2002, when the company’s community relations department and the Gold Fields Ghana Foundation were established. Each mine set up a community consultative committee as the formal structure through which to interact regularly with local stakeholders. Until 2004, the bulk of these projects were classrooms, clinic and other community infrastructure construction. This was supported by a pilot livelihood programme aimed at developing local fish, goat, sheep, snail and pig farming.

By 2004, the stakeholder engagement process was restructured and the company formalised a five-year sustainable community development programme, which became known as “SEED”.

To ensure sustainability and community ownership of the programme, SEED will be driven via the Primary Stakeholder Community Committees, with whom GFG interacts at least monthly, and which are designed for the individual, primary communities to articulate their specific issues and concerns thus removing the competition between communities from the proceedings of the Tarkwa and Damang Mine Community Consultative Committees. Prior to agreeing to specific projects Gold Fields consulted with all stakeholders, including the communities themselves, through existing formal consultative committee structures, the District Assembly (and its sub-structures), the Ghana Health Service, the Ghana Education Service, the Ghana Community Water and Sanitation Agency and Ministry of Agriculture. In this manner, GFG ensures that its development projects are in alignment with the expressed needs and views of the primary stakeholder communities and the development plans outlined by various government authorities.

As a result of the SEED process, the projects for F2006 have shifted to early childhood development centres, toilets and teacher accommodation for existing schools, all of which are key components in ensuring the sustainability of educational and medical infrastructure. All projects avoid ongoing dependence on the mine and maximise the active assumption of responsibility by other stakeholders by requiring the land on which the structures are built to be provided by the community in consultation with government. Once construction has been completed, the Foundation ceases to have responsibility for the operation and maintenance of the facility. Neglect of the infrastructure will be avoided through upfront and firm commitments from authorities and benefiting communities, to maintain the facilities.

As part of SEED, the company also continued to invest in the assessment and feasibility of a range of potentially large-scale agri-business opportunities that could provide more formal employment in a post-mining setting. The oil palm investigation mentioned in F2005, is being subjected to a Bankable Feasibility Study. So far the project looks to have made a substantial contribution to counter the negative economic impacts of mine closure. GFG is already providing assistance under SEED to small-scale farmers for the establishment of oil palm as a cash crop and a component of alternative livelihood programmes in primary stakeholder communities, which will complement this new effort.

Conceptual feasibility studies during F2006 confirmed that the opportunity for the development of large-scale fish farming in the hundreds of hectares of water bodies created by Gold Fields and other gold mining companies in the area. These water bodies can be transformed into productive resources for aquaculture and fisheries, as they are successively de-commissioned from gold mining. Foreseeing a potentially important long-term opportunity for the local population, Gold Fields partnered with the Ghana Ministry of Fisheries, the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) and the World Fish Centre to further study the potential for aquaculture in decommissioned mine facilities.