'Gold-mining Multinationals and Community Interaction in Tanzania'
On Tuesday 20 December 2016, Mary Rutenge successfully defended her PhD thesis in which she studied the accountability of gold-mining companies to the communities within which they operate in Tanzania.
In her thesis she answered four research questions:
- How and to what extent were communities around gold mines in Tanzania (un)successful in extracting localized social accountability regarding land grievances from gold-mining companies?
- How and to what extent were communities around gold mines in Tanzania (un)successful in extracting localized social accountability regarding environmental pollution from gold-mining companies.
- How and to what extent were communities around gold mines in Tanzania able to use force to demand a company’s response to their claims regarding the impact of their externalities, that is, unfair land transfers and environmental pollution?
- How and to what extent was the social spending of gold-mining companies used as a response to communities’ claims and hence compensation for companies’ externalities and what was the role of the communities in this?
She concludes that communities’ active role is important if companies are to behave in a socially responsible way.
