Title: Mining governance, corporate social responsibility and community development in Ghana

Authors: Kenneth Ofori-Boateng; George Adu

Addresses: GIMPA Business School, Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA), P.O. Box AH 50, Achimota, Accra, Ghana ' Department of Economics, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, Ghana; The Nordic Africa Institute, P. O. Box 1703, SE-75147, Uppsala, Sweden

Abstract: This paper examined mining governance, corporate social responsibility (CSR) and community development in Ghana. Leaning on the resource curse thesis, CSRs and community development literature, the study utilised in-depth interviews of selected mining companies, expert opinions and content analysis to draw on the various conclusions. It was found that due to the negative impact of mining on the 'local economy', mining companies have embarked on 'enhanced' CSR activities to keep mining communities at pace with development. These activities are isolated in most cases from the government development activities in the mining areas. The nature of CSR activities were of the same across mining companies, except in size and magnitude. Efforts by central and local governments to restructure mining governance in terms of revenue sharing and to adopt a comprehensive partnership arrangements with the mining companies to jointly initiate well focused asset-based development agenda for the mining communities is highly recommended.

Keywords: mining governance; local resource curse; community development; corporate social responsibility; CSR; Ghana; public-private partnerships; PPPs; mining industry; mines; local economy; revenue sharing.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSSS.2016.081422

International Journal of Society Systems Science, 2016 Vol.8 No.4, pp.337 - 351

Received: 18 Nov 2015
Accepted: 07 Sep 2016

Published online: 07 Jan 2017 *

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