Poor governance of extractive resources has long been acknowledged as a risk to human development and sustainable peace in primary commodity-producing countries across the Global South. There is evidence that natural resource extraction has played a significant role in maintaining structures of colonial inequity and armed violence in developing societies. This is largely incompatible with social justice due to its disastrous socio-economic and environmental consequences. This panel session aims to unpack the social, economic, and environmental injustices and conflict-related issues associated with Africa’s extractive industry and their overall influence on development. The intersections of dispossession, grievances, conflict, resistance, and general security dynamics of extractivism are unravelled. The scope of discussion covers the broader extractive industry – oil and gas and mining in the African continent. The panel discussions take a critical approach through theoretical and empirical lenses on extractive-related security issues (community-level grievances, conflict, protest, etc.), land dispossession, and displacement. The rationale is to underscore how conflict, violence, and general insecurity issues in the extractive industry undermine development and to contribute further to policy recommendations for sustainable extractivism in Africa.

Grievances, conflict, and some new forms of security movements increasingly characterize the African extractive sector. This paper seeks to explore community-level grievances and the associated security movements in the extractive spaces in Ghana. The paper aims to critically examine the new forms of security movements as a form of natural resource governance in Ghana’s mining industry that contribute to community-level grievances and dispossession or otherwise. The paper aims to answer the following questions: How do the government’s security policies contribute to community-level grievances and dispossession? How is security conceptualized or understood in Ghana’s mineral extraction? Whose security? Do the security-related policies in natural resource governance influence other community-level security movements and grievances? Guided by these questions, the paper aims to conceptualize “new form security movements” in the extractive sector and the overall impact on community-level grievances and conflicts in Ghana's mining sector.

It is common that civilian armed groups constitute an obstacle to peace. However, the study of their interference in the artisanal mining sector reveals that they sometimes participate in the resolution of conflicts between the actors who intervene there. What justifies this fact? Why do civilian armed groups intervene in local conflict resolution processes in relation to the small-scale mining sector? What can we deduce from this regarding their perception of the mining sector and local power? This paper studies the conflict resolution mechanisms put in place by civilian armed groups as a regulatory form of interference in the ASM sector in South Kivu. The paper leads to the idea that the methods of conflict resolution engaged by civilian armed groups are part of the order of the representations they have of the sector. The artisanal mining sector presents itself to them as the expression of property, of an identity which materializes through the concern to preserve its integrity. Thus, resolving conflicts means participating in the preservation of the mining sector. For this, beyond purely materialist analyzes of the interference of civilian armed groups, the sector presents itself as a space for sharing emotions, memories, successes, and conquests linked to the conflicts which forge the very idea of 'existing as an armed group. It is in this cosmogonic trajectory that we must understand the commitment of armed groups to resolve conflicts in the small-scale artisanal mining sector. The paper is original as it considers the mining sector as a cosmogonic universe in which the motivations of the actors who intervene in it make it possible to identify their degree of attachment. The corollary is that the mining sector presents itself as an institution of conflict, a point of reflection on the nexus of natural resources, conflicts, and armed groups

Artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) as an economic activity is often described as a poverty-driven activity, and many participants depend on it for a livelihood. Over the years, particularly in Ghana, ASM has experienced an explosion of diverse participants with an increase in the persistence of illegal ASM (galamsey). Successive Ghanaian governments have often had an ambivalent relationship with ASM and its participants. But in 2017, this dynamic evolved when images of the polluted Pra River due to illegal Artisanal and Small-scale Gold Mining were disseminated nationwide across various media platforms. This would lead to the media campaign #Stop Galamsey, which would portray ASM as a menace to society. The government would classify it as a security threat and take a militarized approach to clamp down on galamsey activities. This study presents an overview of the role of the media in framing discourse on galamsey, its influence on the government's securitization approach and policies implemented towards ASM, and its impact on participants over the past few years.

The focus of scholarly interest regarding climate action in cities is on large-scale cities or even megacities (Bulkeley, 2013; Bulkeley, Castan Broto and Maassen, 2013). It highlights the importance of megacities and their prominence and leadership in climate change and sustainability. However, the attention surrounding megacities is overshadowing other urban centres, such as those in polycentric areas, since just 12% of all urban residents live in these cities. Given that half of all people who live in cities worldwide live in cities with 500,000 or more residents (DESA, 2015), it is critical to include these cities in discussions on climate change (Hoppe et al., 2016). This calls for more research to understand the potential of these small and medium-sized cities and municipalities. The study employs a multiple case study research design to enable a deeper understanding of the situational complexity across a diversity of urban forms and governance structures.