Review of Public Administration and Management Review Article 1 Review Pub Administration Manag, Vol. 9 Iss. 6 No: 291 R e vi e w o f P u b li c A d m i n i s t r a ti o n a n d M a n a g e m e n t ISSN: 2315-7844 OPEN ACCESS Freely available online Towards Socially Responsible Mining Investment in Ethiopia: Imagining a New Moral Economy Wakgari Kebeta Djigsa* Community Services and University-Industry Linkage at Wollega University School of Law, Ethiopia ABSTRACT Ethiopia is a home to untapped mining potential. Mining can do more than create wealth: it can contribute to the well-being of a whole country. On the contrary, unregulated mining investment could also result in unwanted consequences. Currently, in Ethiopia, the number of human rights violations is growing exponentially, particularly in relation to mining operations and extractive projects. Mining companies usually fail to respect the internationally accepted human rights and protection standards. This paper examines how the existing laws, policies and institutional frameworks of Ethiopia are promoting socially responsible mining investments in light of the recognized standards for local community welfare, occupational health and safety performance, discriminatory hiring and promotion practices with respect to race or gender, and labor disputes. In so doing, it relies on both primary and secondary sources of data. The primary sources of data are domestic and international laws relevant to the mining sector whereas the secondary sources are policies, governmental and non-governmental reports and literatures in the field. It finds that none of Ethiopia’s mining legislation has provisions addressing employment benefits, training opportunities, or social benefits of local communities from the mining operations. It adds that the existing legislations are also not implemented as needed. Accordingly, it recommends that Ethiopia should adopt proper legal, policy and institutional frameworks in order to curb the negative impacts of mining investments. It also calls for broad-based participation and social awareness programs so as to build the sense of ownership in local communities. Keywords: Ethiopia; Investment; Mining; Socially responsible investment; Sustainable development INTRODUCTION Investment plays a pivotal role in ensuring a country’s economic growth and development. Even if its share in the Ethiopia’s Gross Domestic Product is far from being significant, there are some progresses in creating job opportunity, increasing foreign currency, and facilitating technology transfer, among others. Apart from the positive effects that came with the promotion and protection of investments, there are also numerous challenges that are attributable to irresponsible investments. In particular, the country is witnessing various sorts of human rights violations, pollution including water, land, air and sound pollution and many more. Besides, the working conditions of workers engaging in the sector is also below the minimum standards set under international legal instruments to which Ethiopia herself is a party and other domestic laws. As a result, the attitude of the society and the government towards investment activities is changing rapidly. Numerous investment projects that would have contributed to the country’s move towards transformation to industrial-led economy were destroyed as a result of peoples’ discontent with the projects. Lax investment regulation may result in harmful effects that may justify intervention. The World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED) suggested as far back as 1987 that “economics and ecology can interact destructively and trip into disaster.” The Bhopal catastrophe of 3 rd December 1984, which happened right after the 1970s Indian government’s policy to encourage foreign companies to invest in local industry, best illustrates this scenario. In that industrial incident, more than forty tons of methyl gas was leaked from a pesticide plant in Bhopal, India and immediately killed at least three thousand eight hundred people and caused significant morbidity and premature death for many thousands more [1-3]. This paper aims at revisiting the legal and policy frameworks regulating mining investment in Ethiopia. It examines the interaction between mining investment and sustainable development, i.e., how should the mining sector be regulated in order to contribute its part to the country’s journey towards a development that works for all. Correspondence to: Wakgari Kebeta Djigsa, Researcher and Associate Dean for Community Services and University-Industry Linkage at Wollega University School of Law, Ethiopia, Ph. No +251917049890; E-mail: wakgarikebeta@gmail.com Received: January 27, 2021; Accepted: June 21, 2021; Published: June 29, 2021 Citation: Kebeta Djigsa W (2021) Towards Socially Responsible Mining Investment in Ethiopia: Imagining a New Moral Economy. Review Pub Administration Manag, 9: 291 Copyright: © 2021 Djigsa WK. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.