Akobo Minerals is focused on delivering sustainable value for our employees, stakeholders and host communities, now and in the future. This commitment is a key pillar of our strategy.

We believe the protection of the health and wellbeing of our employees, caretaker of local environment and being an advocate for sustainable economic empowerment in our host communities are not just the right things to do, they’re good for our business.

Background on Akobo Minerals’ ESG program

Akobo Minerals is building the capacity of its corporate and operations team to place ESG issues at the heart of the development of its gold project in Ethiopia. 

The Akobo Minerals mining licence includes a number of ESG obligations that it has negotiated or is pursuing, including a commitment to support sustainable development initiatives in the Dima woreda (district), located in the Gambella region.

Akobo Minerals, as an ethical exploration company is seeking to turn the complex ESG challenge into an opportunity. At the beginning of 2021, Akobo Minerals embarked on a partnership with Sazani Associates (Sazani), a UK-based not-for-profit organisation specialising in natural resource governance, to undertake a rapid appraisal of natural resources and their use in the project area by the local community. Sazani prepared a sustainable natural resource management plan (SNRMP). This will complement mitigation of any negative and positive impacts determined through an environmental and social impact assessment (ESIA), the company is undertaking.

The SNRMP is being designed as a parallel self-sustaining initiative to the development of its gold mining project and will incorporate the following:

  • Capacity building in environmental and social safeguarding and technical capacities of artisanal and small-scale gold mining (ASGM) activity, as well as improved regulation;
  • Alternative sustainable livelihood opportunities that support food security and technical vocations; and
  • A payment for ecosystem services scheme, to generate income, from carbon credits, for our host communities, through rehabilitation and conservation of degraded areas.

These are in addition to a series of philanthropic initiatives and infrastructure upgrading undertaken by Akobo to date.