Readers will be interested to learn that the Scottish Catholic International Aid Fund (SCIAF), Christian Aid and Action for Southern Africa (ACTSA), with the support of Zambian civil society, have just published a major report – Undermining Development? – on why Zambia fails to derive the benefits that it should from its enormous copper reserves. The focus of the report is KCM, Zambia’s biggest copper company – majority-owned by a UK-based company, Vedanta Resources. The report finds disturbing evidence of contracts signed under pressure from international donors, environmental agreements that allow multinationals to bypass local laws, and workers who receive little reward for gruelling hours of physical labour.
MineWatchZambia has made the reports available for download. The full report is available, along with an executive summary. We will let you know soon where hard copies of the report can be obtained from.
This is the beginning of a major campaign for SCIAF: click here for more information about the 'e-action' they are organising to follow up on their report.
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