Shift Soil - Brown Field Briefing
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Transcript of Shift Soil - Brown Field Briefing
8/3/2019 Shift Soil - Brown Field Briefing
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/shift-soil-brown-field-briefing 1/2
There is a well-known quote by Mark Twain
that goes: “Buy land! They’re not making it
anymore.”
It is succinct in its way of reminding
people of the relative scarcity and finite
nature of land.
Having spent most of my life in South
Africa I had the (occasionally worrying)
hands-on experience of an African nation
going through considerable change. This
change, happening all over the country, hasrecently turned to environmental protection
and a general awareness, enforced by
strengthening legislation, such as the
drafting of the Bamako Convention, an
African convention to prohibit all hazardous
waste imports into Africa which came
into force in 1998, and the South African
National Environmental Management:
Waste Act of 2008. This is all a positive drive
for Africa; however, there are many ant-hills
to jump and rivers to cross before “African
success”.For most business owners wishing to do
business in Africa the problems they face
seem insurmountable, including: available
funding, cultural and distance barriers, law
enforcement, ground conditions and the
sheer logistics involved in carrying out the
project. So why is it worth their while to
investigate the possibilities?
The level of Foreign Direct Investment
(FDI) across the continent coming from
internal states is growing but the bulk is
resource intensive trade with countries
outside the continent. The top two African
countries for FDI are South Africa and
Nigeria, reflecting the mass of wealth
these countries float on and their own
demographic realities. The levels of inward
and outward FDI between these two
countries and the EU are broadly on par
(with the EU leading slightly) and represent
the possibility that trade with Africa as a
whole could one day be more balanced. Not
only in the value but in the type and range of
products traded.
Infrastructure is unreliable and many
modern thoughts have not permeated the
general populace, but although there is a
great deal of negative publicity surrounding
Africa (which tends to be all people hear)
in reality there is an enormous amount of
positivity.
Agriculture, mining and oil industry,alternative energy, construction,
infrastructure, remediation and waste
management are some of the biggest
opportunity markets developing in Africa
right now and the future will hold many
more as urbanisation takes hold and
consumerism rises with incomes.
This vast and diverse continent offers
many opportunities besides the sunshine
and raw natural beauty.
It is home to more than 1bn people living
in 54 individual countries, overshadowing
Europe’s 400m living in 50 countries.
Europe is not often considered homogenous
and nor should you think of Africa as
anything such. While I draw on some
commonalities this caution to generalise
remains.
The reasons for the push and pulls of these
FDI flows are quite illustrative to what’s
actually going on. The push factors for more
trade and investment outside their home
African country include:
• Rising wealth in emerging markets;
• Breaking up domestic monopolies;
• Rising cost of labour;
• New technology and communications
leading to improved information sharing
and reduced transaction costs;
• Strategic desire to procure inputs such as
oil;
• Capital account liberalisation, changes intrade barriers, regional trade agreements,
and government policies encouraging
outward FDI.
Equally, the pull factors to these African
countries are:
• Large, growing markets;
• Supply of cheap labour;
• Abundance in raw materials;
• Incentives in host countries with
preferential treatment of foreign companies.
Even with rising levels of trade, the
continent still has an uncertain future.
For the moment it relies on the extractive
resource industries and agriculture.
Diversification of sectors has not yet
reached sustainable levels in many parts.
The over-reliance on extractive industries
reflects the natural richness and the
lack of more diversification is the result
of the continents tremulous past. With
new deposits and resources frequently
Africa - barefoot and running
26 | african remediation
Daryn Short of Shift Soil reflects on the remediation potential in Africa, and its emerging
opportunities for the industry.
8/3/2019 Shift Soil - Brown Field Briefing
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/shift-soil-brown-field-briefing 2/2
discovered, like the recent oil and gas finds
near Ghana and Angola, the resource
burden will soon be ramped up and the
ability to handle this change will be decided
on a country by country basis reflecting
local institutional development.
Africa represents more than 20% of
Earth’s land with 16% of its soils no longer
able to sustain any growth, 65% of which
is agricultural, and the problem isn’t going
away. Facing agricultural stagnation and a
general state of soil decline with a range of
causes, the four biggest pollution problems
originate from mining, pesticides and the
chemical petroleum industry and more
recently e-wastes. The introduction of
industry, western products and waste in
conjunction with governments havinglittle or no environmental legislation, gave
governments, companies and individuals
free will to discharge waste into the soil,
water and air.
What are the challenges with working
in Africa?
Being the poorest continent, Africa has
had some difficulties in funding these
costly clean-up operations until recent
involvement from the World Bank,
UN, western countries/companies, andlocal governments (by way of fines and
levies). Cultural and language barriers
are often misunderstood or overlooked,
so having a local partner could prevent
any communication breakdown as well as
provide local legal advice. Although African
legislation is growing stronger, there is a
lack of environmental law enforcement in
somewhat corrupt environments, making it
hard to identify and prosecute polluters.Ground conditions are quite unlike
the UK, and one needs to be prepared for
scorching heat, enormous thunder storms,
lack of portable water, ablution facilities,
limited road access, theft and more. This
leads on to logistical problems when
deploying, moving from site to site, moving
staff (and recruiting new staff), access to sites
and available potable water to name a few.
Two major stories have come out
of Nigeria within the last eight
months were where more than
600 children died from lead
poisoning directly connected
to local illegal gold mining.
The villagers believe that
a “spell” has been cast
on their community,
and deny their only
income stream is killing
their youth. This is a
prime example of how
culturally different we
all are and how much
understanding we needto share and gain.
However bright or
bleak Africa’s future,
the opportunities are
rewarding but are equally as challenging.A few rules about working with African’s
in their homeland are worth keeping in
mind:-
1) local support is crucial. Whenever
feasible, source locally, use traditional
means of distribution and be considerate of
custom without neglecting your contracts;
2) salaries may be low, but so is productivity.
Total operating cost can be 2-3 times higher
than Europe;
3) never underestimate the importance of
keeping personal documentation up to date.
Valid documentation for your host country
is vital;
4) Africans do not get bogged down with
hardships nor complain about the situation.
They are a constant source of creativity and
endurance. You too will be rewarded for
the ability to do this with ‘out-of-the-box’
thinking;
5) you must be ready to engage the wider
community and stakeholders, developing
real partnerships. If you create a business
opportunity people will see beyond the
politics to engage the idea and help to makeit happen.
Daryn Short
Shift Soil Remediation
african remediation| 27
Source: World Resources Institute