I am told that the conference attracts more than 6,500 mining experts every year and has been held successfully for the past 27 years in Cape Town, South Africa. I am indeed delighted to be part of the 28th edition of the conference and attending in person, having addressed the conference in a virtual format in 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The return to physical attendance of this important event is a sign that things are slowly beginning to return to normalcy. I must hasten to state that we are not out of the woods yet, but light is beginning to show at the end of the tunnel. I am informed that this year’s edition of the conference is held under the theme: “Evolution of African Mining: Investing in the Energy Transition, ESG, and the Economies”. Following the adoption of the Paris Agreement in December 2015, which came into force on November 4, 2016, many countries embarked on efforts to assess the consequences of climate change, and ultimately came up with policy measures that could help support the transition to low-carbon economies. ESG, a process of considering environmental, social and governance factors when making investment decisions, has become a leading form of sustainable finance in a number of companies and jurisdictions.
