Mining is a central pillar of Senegal’s economy and is expected to play a significant role in the country’s continued social and economic development.

On the legislative and policy front, strides have been made in recent years to strengthen governance in the sector. In 2013 Senegal became a candidate country for the Extractives Industry Transparency Initiative (EITI), and will aim to become a fully compliant country by the end of 2016. The government is currently undertaking revisions of both its mining code and mining policy, with both expected to be adopted in early 2017. The government has developed and adopted a model mining convention to guide negotiations between the state and mining companies. In addition, efforts have been made to formalize the artisanal and small-scale mining sector. Challenges remain, principal among them enforcement of existing laws and policies on the ground.

Using the IGF’s Mining Policy Framework (MPF) as a guide, this assessment report first presents the national development, mining and legal contexts, and then highlights the key strengths, weaknesses and gaps in Senegal’s mining policies and laws, across all six of the MPF’s thematic areas. The assessment was carried out in 2016 with the support of the Government of Canada. 

This paper makes the case why the procurement phase of the infrastructure cycle is pivotal to the deployment of sustainable infrastructure.

It provides an overview of laws, policies and incentives that frame the global debate while also discussing barriers and challenges to effective implementation. 

Comprehensive wealth is made up of five components: produced, financial, natural, human and social capital. It is about measuring what matters in the long run, focusing on the role of people, the environment and the economy in creating and sustaining well-being.

Complementing the gross domestic product (GDP) and addressing issues it can’t capture on its own, comprehensive wealth measures are key to successfully guiding Canada through the 21st century and beyond.

With the support of the Ivey Foundation, the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) has released this report to help Canadians understand what comprehensive wealth means and how measuring it can positively impact our future. The report finds that overall comprehensive wealth grew slowly between 1980 and 2013. After taking inflation and population growth into consideration, comprehensive wealth grew at an annual rate of 0.19 per cent over the period. In terms of its components:

• produced capital grew by 1.68 per cent annually, though most (70 per cent) of this growth was concentrated in the oil and gas extraction industry and housing
• market natural capital (fossil fuels, timber, minerals and farmland) declined by 0.93 per cent annually (for a total drop of 25 per cent)
• non-market natural capital (ecosystems and climate) declined based on a set of non-monetary indicators
• human capital, which accounts for about 80 per cent of Canada’s comprehensive wealth, did not grow at all, and
• social capital appears to have been stable based on a suite of non-monetary indicators. 

For more information, visit the IISD Comprehensive Wealth website. 

This report explores two trends—the growing tendency towards large basin management and consideration of ecosystem services in decision making—for the northern portion of the Nelson-Churchill River Basin (NCRB) in Canada.

Unlike other parts of the NCRB, the northern portion of the basin, including that in northern Manitoba, has not yet been the focus of large-scale planning for sustainable land and water management. Recent events, climate change, possible increases in resource development and potential for tourism growth all suggest the need for such regional planning.

Changes in the North could add new stresses to the environment, but they also present opportunities, particularly to improve socioeconomic conditions in those communities.

A summary of this report is available here.

This document summarizes a more extensive IISD research report that explores two trends—the growing tendency towards large basin management and consideration of ecosystem services in decision making—for the northern portion of the Nelson-Churchill River Basin (NCRB) in Canada.

Unlike other parts of the NCRB, the northern portion of the basin, including that in northern Manitoba, has not yet been the focus of large-scale planning for sustainable land and water management. Recent events, climate change, possible increases in resource development and potential for tourism growth all suggest the need for such regional planning.

Changes in the North could add new stresses to the environment, but they also present opportunities, particularly to improve socioeconomic conditions in those communities.

The full report is available here. 

If we aim to reduce global emissions in order to limit global warming to less than 2°C above pre-industrial levels, then the energy sector is of paramount importance.

A critical change will be national fuel switching away from carbon-intensive sources and increased effort towards energy efficiency and sustainable energy. Subsidies and support from governments to fossil fuels encourage the opposite.

Many countries and regions are making this switch: from subsidising fossil fuels and towards investing in sustainable energy.This report describes how Ethiopia, Morocco, Peru and the Philippines have reformed their subsidies. It also describes how countries including Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden have introduced innovative policy instruments to encourage switching towards  renewable and sustainable energy.

This report seeks to assess the cost to the Chinese government, in terms of subsidies, of operating and investing in coal-fired electricity generators, the predominant source of electricity in China.

We find that the value of the subsidies to coal-fired generation was at least CNY 252 billion (USD 37.7 billion) in 2014 and CNY 120 billion (USD 18 billion) in 2015.

Subsidies provide an advantage to coal generation over other technologies. The 2016 G20 subsidy peer review was a major step towards transparency, particularly for oil and gas subsidies. However, it did not include an analysis of the subsidies to coal-fired electricity generators. It is recommended that policy-makers expand the scope of the subsidy review processes to include the subsidies described here. 

Electricity distribution utilities in India are currently unable to cover the cost of their operations from the sale of electricity.

The absence of cost recovery has serious implications for the financial health of the electricity sector: it undermines efforts to maintain investments in transmission and distribution systems (and therefore to expand rural electrification), deliver reliable power, and support the development of renewable energy. Tariff reform is key to solving these issues; however, tariff reform can be unpopular.

This report presents the findings of a household survey that sheds light on the awareness and views of different socioeconomic and geographical groups regarding electricity subsidies and electricity tariff reform. It concludes that there is a significant lack of awareness of the existence and size of electricity subsidies, although subsidy reform is a tough sell. At the same time, surveyed households recognize that higher power prices would have significant negative impacts on their daily activities, and some of them show willingness to pay for a more reliable power supply.

Forests are a major source of wealth for Canadians, providing a wide range of economic, social and environmental benefits that are critical to the Canadian economy.

The Canadian boreal forest accounts for 28 per cent of the world’s boreal/taiga forest systems, and is central to the country’s natural environment, culture and economy.

At present, the region remains largely undeveloped. However, the search for resources—coupled with technological advances—is likely to create both increased pressures and opportunities in the region. 

Fostering sustainable growth and development that benefits communities and their environment for the long term requires strong science and economics, and an integration of ecological, cultural and social needs and values. 

In this paper, we explore case studies from across the globe of forest management models and determine their ability to successfully maintain ecological and cultural services in areas of resource growth.

Technologies currently being deployed will mean that the mines of the future look much different than today’s operations.

Among the major changes will be fewer employees, thanks to labour-saving innovations. Yet local employment and employment-related procurement are major drivers of host country benefits, and an important part of the shared-value proposition.

This report, co-produced with the Columbia Center for Sustainable Investment, looks to the near and medium terms, exploring what will happen to the local employment and procurement components of the shared-value paradigm—and, by extension, to the mining companies’ social licence to operate—if technological change radically alters the amount of money mining firms are spending on hiring and procurement. It surveys the trends in technology development, and uses procurement and other data from two global mining firms to estimate the types of impacts we might see. It concludes by exploring the ways in which governments and firms might address the predicted results.