Mining Indaba: Bristow pleads with African miners to create ‘partnerships for prosperity’
A renewed focus on creating meaningful partnerships between miners, host communities and governments is quintessential to unlocking economic prosperity for African stakeholders, Barrick Gold (TSX: ABX; NYSE: GOLD) CEO Mark Bristow told the audience at Investing in Africa Mining Indaba on Monday.
The chief executive of the world’s second-largest gold producer by volume calls it “partnerships for prosperity,” which he believes is critical for building Africa into a resource powerhouse.
Bristow pointed out one of the biggest tests for partnership the world ever faced was the arrival of covid-19.
“Historians of the future will marvel at how governments initially bungled their response to the pandemic, both at home and abroad,” he said. “Global problems need global solutions. But instead of the developed countries leading a coordinated response, we saw them give a shameful display of selfishness, initially at least, starving poorer countries of vaccines while they sat on stockpiles of the stuff,” said Bristow.
“If ever there was a need for partnership, this was it, and they failed the test.”
