The 17th Africa Oil, Gas and Mines Trade and Finance Conference (OILGASMINE) and Exhibition will examine how the extractive industries can contribute to sustainable job creation, within the sector and in the broader economy.

Every year, more than 12 million young Africans join the continent’s labour force. But only around 5 million of them will find jobs.

Creating more jobs continues to be a major challenge, and the continent’s ability to put more of its labour force to work will, in part, determine how successful it will be at achieving the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development – in particular goals 1 and 8, which aim to end poverty and promote full and productive employment and decent work for all.

The extractive oil, gas and mining industries play a key role in many African economies but create few employment opportunities. The continent is richly endowed with mineral reserves and hosts about 8 per cent of the world’s oil and gas. These resources account for a significant share of export earnings in many African countries, yet the extractive industries employ only around 1 per cent of Africa’s workforce.

UNCTAD research, however, shows that these industries can contribute to sustainable job creation, particularly by supporting other economic sectors, and this will be the main discussion at its 17th African OILGASMINE Conference and Exhibition, taking place in Khartoum, Sudan, from 23 to 26 November 2015.

The conference will bring together governments, the private sector and civil society to redefine the extractive industries’ role in job creation, both within the sector and in the broader economy. In addition, the conference will look at investment opportunities in Africa, and discuss how these investments could lead to more and better economic opportunities for local populations.

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Seventeenth African OILGASMINE Conference and Exhibition

23–26 November 2015, Khartoum

The central theme for this year’s event jointly organized by UNCTAD and the Government of Sudan in partnership with Cubic Globe Ltd is “Extractive industries and sustainable job creation”.

Africa is richly endowed with metals and mineral resources. The continent contributes to a sizeable share of the global reserves of some minerals such as bauxite, chromite, platinum, tin, gold, gemstones, diamonds, manganese, uranium, and iron ore. The continent also holds almost 8 per cent of proven world oil and gas reserves. Many African economies are highly dependent on the exploitation of these minerals. However, the continent’s participation in the global oil, gas and minerals industry is limited to providing raw materials. Today, most of Africa’s extractives are still exported as crudes, ores, concentrates and metals, without significant value addition and job creation.

The oil, gas and mineral sectors of several African developing countries have shown limited positive impacts on other sectors of the economy, job creation, or on addressing problems of environmental degradation. African oil-, gas- and mineral-exporting countries could derive more benefits from the sectors by stimulating the development of forward (adding value to the extracted materials) and backward (through the supply of local goods and services) linkages broadly within their national economies. Countries could also leverage the skills and technology acquired from developing such linkages to serve other sectors of the economy and generate jobs in a sustainable manner, beyond the life cycle of the extractive industry. To attain this objective, long-standing challenges such as insufficient access to financing, low education and skills, lack of technology transfer, weak infrastructure and in several instances insufficient progress in improving the governance, including transparency and accountability frameworks, need to be addressed.

OILGASMINE Conference and Exhibition

Since 1996, UNCTAD has organized an annual Africa Oil, Gas and Minerals Trade and Finance Conference and Exhibition (OILGASMINE) in different locations in Africa with a view to providing a platform for an open and inclusive dialogue among all stakeholders (public, private, civil society and academia) to address the challenges faced in Africa’s extractive sector. The principal objectives of the conference are to:

• Share information and experiences in particular success stories;

• Attract investment into extractive industries;

• Foster and build intraregional partnerships by focusing on South-South cooperation as well as renewing North-South partnerships;

• Create better linkages between the extractive sector and other domestic sectors;

• Build effective multi-stakeholder partnerships, particularly with private firms;

• Provide networking opportunities;

• Showcase equipment, innovative technology, goods and services in the extractive sector.

Theme and questions to debate

The theme for this year’s OILGASMINE is “Extractive industries and sustainable job creation”. In various sessions, participants will debate topics such as legal and regulatory frameworks for developing a sustainable industry from within; challenges and opportunities for job creation in artisanal-scale mining; training and capacity-building in the extractive industries for sustainable job creation; innovations and technology transfer; partnerships for mining and petroleum sector development; and investing in renewables for green jobs, among others.

A component of the conference agenda will focus on the host country’s upstream potential in the extractive industries and the available investment opportunities. This session will be complemented with another one on the opportunities in investing in Africa’s extractive industries. Participants at the seventeenth Africa OILGASMINE will share their views and experiences on these various topics that will contribute to the major conclusions and recommendations of the conference.

The key questions to be discussed at the conference include:

• What are the opportunities for investment in Africa’s extractive industries? What partnerships can be formed to enhance job creation?

• How can legal and regulatory measures be used to promote job creation? What is the best practice in structuring agreements with foreign oil and mining companies to promote job creation? What are the challenges facing job creation in Africa’s oil and mining companies?

• How can artisanal-scale mining be structured and organized to attract more workers, irrespective of gender, increase safety and improve environmental management?

• How can access to finance be improved for small and medium-sized enterprises to participate in the extractive industry and generate jobs?

• How can skills development and technology transfer be promoted in the extractive industries?

• What can be done to strengthen intra-African/Arab-African cooperation for mining and petroleum sector development? What are the challenges in maintaining such relationships and how can they be addressed?