Digital finance in the Central African Republic (3): from mine to currency and wallet
The wealth extracted from the African subsoil can be better oriented towards an integral and sustainable development of countries and their populations. The digital interpretation of the process from mine to currency and wallet constitutes a development opportunity for the Central African Republic.
September 20, 2020. London. The World Gold Council publishes Gold Mining's Contribution to the UN Sustainable Development Goals. In her foreword, Lisa Sachs, Director of the Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment at Columbia University, sums up the industry's contribution to sustainable development: “This timely report demonstrates the key role gold companies play - through their products. , their operations, their supply chains, their infrastructures and their external commitments - in the challenge of sustainable development. The report usefully discusses the complex procedures in which gold mining impacts nearly all Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and shows how responsible gold mining companies are gradually working to contribute to the SDGs. "
In terms of gold mining, and more generally precious minerals, the social, societal and environmental responsibility of mining companies is committed to contributing to the SDGs all along the chain "from mine to market": resource extraction , job creation, provision of investments, provision of foreign exchange and tax revenues to countries, health care, infrastructure, community development, local supply chains. If this commitment is essential to the sustainable development of the countries which host the gold resources, the direct profitability of these resources to the national economy and to the well-being of the populations of the developing countries is no less so. In this regard, here is what an African president said.
Accra, December 04, 2017. The President of the Republic of Ghana, Mr. Nana Akufo-Addo, received the French President, Mr. Emmanuel Macron, with these words: “Our responsibility is to chart the way through which we can develop our nations ourselves… We should now be able to finance our basic needs ourselves… this continent, with whatever happens is still the reservoir of at least 30% of the most important minerals in the world… The African continent should be able to to give help to other places based on the immense resources we have. We have a lot of wealth. "
We have shown this previously. The Central African Republic, a poor country if there ever was one, sits on a treasure that neither benefits the state completely nor the populations sufficiently, but is disappearing into armed groups controlling the informal economy or through obstinately porous borders. Digital finance has assets that can be mobilized so that the resources of the subsoil benefit the country's economy and the well-being of populations. This financial sector offers at least three opportunities that can be quickly put together. The common thread that connects them is provided by the very history of money which can be readapted in a country where gold is abundant but where money is scarce.
The making of coins is often summed up by this formula: from the mine to the coin then to the wallet. Originally national currencies, pure silver and gold were used to mint coins of a particular effigy. But the rise in the price of these metals, coupled with the hoarding of coins and subsequent shortages, led to the official withdrawal of first gold and then silver in circulation. These metals are now strictly reserved for the making of bullion and collector coins, while most standard coins are made of copper, nickel, zinc, or a combination of the three. In CAR, by going back to the sources of money, the abundance of gold can be leveraged by digital finance to generate investments.
