Fixing broken links: Linking extractive sectors to productive value chains

Image: Flickr, Ollivier Girard/CIFOR
Image: Flickr, Ollivier Girard/CIFOR

Methodology

Analytical review

Research Objective

Paper aims to understand how the extractive sectors can better be integrated into value chain development policy making and industrialisation by focusing on backwards and forward linkages within the sector and without.

Synopsis

This paper highlights the importance of bridging the gap between the extractive sector and productive value chains in order to foster sustainable structural transformation. It stresses the importance of:

  • creating linkages within the extractive sector, notably through focused industrial policy to boost backward and forward linkages
  • promoting linkages outside the extractive sector, notably in the field of agriculture, currently the most important economic sector in Africa
  • identifying concrete areas where extractive industries can contribute positively to value chain production
  • the global context in which industries operate and the need for countries to position themselves in a strategic manner in the product space, notably in the context of global value chains, to make sure they integrate fully into the complex system of fragmented production

Policy Recommendations

  • Setting the right legal and policy context
  • Safe and reliable infrastructure such as power, transportation and telecommunications,
  • Provide high quality and flexible human resources
  • Policies must be consistent, sequenced and coherent, and take into account commitments with third partners as well as concurrent policies developed at the regional or pan-African level. Internalising broader frameworks such as the Africa Mining Vision (AMV), the Accelerated Industrial Development of Africa (AIDA) or the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) in national strategies are therefore vital
  • Inclusivity of policy making important – critical that private sector and civil society, international cooperation partners give input
2 Jun 2016

Sector

Mining

Institution

ECDPM

Commodity

Minerals