Comments and recommendations on the EBRD Draft Mining Strategy

Policy comments    |    23 June 2012

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As it is now, the EBRD foresees growth in the mining sector and sees its involvement as crucial in this process. At the same time the Bank recognizes that mining can cause significant adverse environmental and social impacts, including permanent ones, and that no single mine can be sustainable since it exploits a finite local resource.

Thus, we would like to propose concrete steps that the EBRD, as a public institution with a transition mandate, should do to bring sustainability and benefits to its countries of operations:

• discontinue financing for coal mining projects;
• avoid financing that locks resource-rich countries into commodity export dependence and diversify financing to other sectors of the economy;
• establish “no-go zones” for mining activities in biodiversity-rich and environmentally vulnerable areas, as well as robust independent mechanisms for assessment and monitoring of negative impacts on valuable ecosystems and species.