Programme Overview
In the past few years, there has been a growing outcry about the type and quantity of benefits that firstly local communities living within the proximity of the extractive industries and secondly, the Zambian people in general get from these industries. Copper prices did shoot up to record high in the year 2008 and yet the benefits were not shared equitably with the mining houses paying little through company tax and other related taxes.
Zambia has signed up to the Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative (EITI) with the intention of helping Zambia achieve more transparency and accountability through appropriate disclosures of revenue received from these industries and accounting for its prudent use. Similarly, initiatives of Publish What You Pay have began in earnest and it is one initiative which Caritas Zambia has been asked to coordinate on behalf of the civil society (www.pywpzambia.org).
Caritas Zambia initiates dialogue meetings, sensitisation workshops for policy and law makers on issues of natural resources. The programme also conducts research leading to advocacy aimed to change policies or institutional frames. The operational objectives are:
Operational Objective 1
To contribute to the improvement of transparency and accountability in the mining sector by 2010.
Operational objective 2
To build capacity at community level in at least two dioceses to effectively engage the government and the investors on the issues relating to the pollution and the environment by the end of 2011.
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