With the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, RDF has worked tirelessly with all our partner institutions to ensure they are able to continue performing their tasks. RDF staff have mostly remained at their country duty stations, implementing our projects and supporting their government counterparts. As workplace restrictions are introduced, RDF is adopting and adjusting to the decisions of the respective authorities. Now more than ever, government public administration systems are important in order to allow civil servants to remain operational under restrictions and RDF is fully prepared to work with partners to ensure governments are equipped to fulfill their duties. In this month’s newsletter, we will focus on our work with the Government of Guinea, and a soon to be launched new portal for viewing mining sector data.
Highlights from Guinea
In Guinea, RDF has implemented its RD Fusion system since 2017, with the help from German Development Cooperation (GIZ), where mining data is transmitted from and accessible to three different ministries. The project has also been part of running the Mining Revenue Taskforce, an inter-governmental body aimed to improve collaboration between government actors regarding management of the mining industry. A highlight of the current phase of the project has been to create the FUSION Online Portal (soon to be launched) where some selected data can be presented to the public or stakeholders.
RDF has worked closely with the Bureau Stratégie et Développement (BSD) at the Ministère Des Mines et de la Géologie (MMG) to develop this platform according to their needs. The aim is both to enable the MMG to communicate more effectively, with greater transparency and efficiency on the data available to the services, and to respond to the expectations and requests of partners and civil society organizations interested in issues of transparency and compliance on mining issues. A beta version of “Portail d’Informations Minières du Bureau Stratégie et Développement du Ministère Des Mines et de la Géologie » is now available for stakeholders, containing production data and export quantities of gold, alumina and bauxite :
Like RD Fusion, it allows the loading of data tables, the edition of formats and services, as well as, graphics that are automatically and dynamically restored on the home page. Emphasis has been placed on the ease of updating the page, so to date, the export of a single table from RD Fusion is necessary to update the portal.
Moreover, in order to present the RD Fusion Online Portal and to demonstrate its features, a workshop was organized in Conakry on January 31st 2020. At this training the Directors and Representatives the BSD, the General Inspection Service of Mines (IGMG) along with the members of the local platform administrators, the FUSION cell, were presented the system. There has been interest in increasing the data formats to include data form other ministries currently found in Fusion. The platform will be launched to the public in the coming months, with training for the customs and revenue authorities currently ongoing
