LOCAL CONTENT INITIATIVES AND LOCAL DEVELOPMENT: THE TRENDS AND CONSTRAINTS OF THE MINING SECTOR IN CAMEROON

Unequivocally, the paper seeks to provide a periscopic view of the designs and interventions of local content Initiatives (LCIs) in the mining sector. Indeed, from the review and analysis, the research finds that resource-rich countries are increasingly inserting requirements for LCIs into their legal framework, through legislation, regulations, contracts, and bidding practices. With LCIs requiring investors to meet certain social investment targets amidst trade-offs. Besides, it equally discovers that the local communities where the exploitation is taking place, do not always benefit from these LCIs, through job creation, local business development, capacity building and technology transfer. In this perspective, the research does reveal that there is a paramount need to frame appropriate, qualified, quantified, adapted and collaborative local content frameworks ? while considering the trade-offs of the level and type of tax concessions to be offered to the mining companies and the level of royalties, local content and social investment commitments to be bestowed on the companies. In this same token, the paper provides an assessment of the conceptual framework of LCIs with reference to local employment, training, procurement, technology transfer, local content plans as well as local ownership, with particular focus on the mining sector of Cameroon. The findings of the research are aimed to motivate policy makers and practitioners in the mining sector to rethink and introduce specific legislation, policy and model contracts on local content, as a vital first step towards operationalizing LCIs, as a sustainable and alternative strategy to avoid the resource curse trend. Similarly, scholars from academia, civil society organisations, think tanks and other research institutions will find the research outputs a valuable addition to their current knowledge on the mining sector and an impetus to conduct more research on local content in general.