Monrovia, Feb. 13 -- Despite Africa's vast mineral wealth, communities living closest to mining sites and within concessions remain among the poorest and most vulnerable. This paradox took the center stage at the Alternative Mining Indaba (AMI) 2026 taking place in Cape Town, South Africa where civil society organizations (CSOs) and inter-faith leaders called for urgent reforms to ensure extractive revenues genuinely support national resource mobilization and community development.

Speakers emphasized that for far too long, host communities have borne the social and environmental costs of mining while receiving little or no benefits to match with the natural resources that extracted from their soil or from their local communities, towns ...