Environmental Assessment
Volume B-5.1
Mine
Socioeconomics
Ambatovy Project
333
January 2006
5.1.3
Impact Assessment
5.1.3.1 Economic Opportunities
Consultation results indicate that economic opportunities created by the mine are
a main concern of people. This includes people who do not expect to directly
benefit but are interested to see that economic opportunities alternative to
agriculture accrue to youth.
Consistent with the principles of cost-effective, efficient, and safe operations, the
project intends to extend on a preferential basis employment, and business
opportunities to mine site communes and nearby urban centres such as
Moramanga. The project will also provide training and other assistance to mine
site communes to help their residents take advantage of these opportunities.
Finally, the project, when evaluating proposals for work on the project, will
consider the extent to which its suppliers and subcontractors employ and contract
Moramanga and businesses.
The extent of positive impacts of employment and business will depend on the
success of these measures. There has been some experience with employment of
people and supply of goods and services local to the project during the
exploration phase. Most hiring to date has been from Ambohibary and
Moramanga, although some individuals from other communes have also been
employed, as well as from elsewhere in Madagascar. Geological and
environmental technicians, drillers, heavy equipment operators, tradesman, and
labourers have found work on the exploration phase of the project. Goods and
services have been purchased widely and include fuel, food and
accommodations, transport and drilling services.
Employment
There are challenges to hiring many of the required construction and operations
workers from the local area. These challenges are strongly related to educational
achievement. Educational achievement is low at primary school level and
particularly at the secondary level. Given the evidence that employment rates are
correlated with educational achievement, most unemployed people in the local
area are likely to have low to very low educational levels. A mining operation
has skill and health and safety requirements that can make it difficult to employ
large numbers of people with limited education.
A second constraint is lack of job experience, and specifically mining sector job
experience. Whereas the project is prepared to look at equivalencies in its
recruitment, again from the available data there is little evidence of other than
