Nomogaia conducted a Human Rights Impact Assessment of the Paladin Energy’s Kayelekera Project in Malawi. This project is the largest foreign investment project in Malawian history. It is also the country’s first uranium mine.

The Company has struggled to ease fears about the Project, but it has made extraordinary efforts to ensure that all concretely impacted rights are being addressed. Schools, clinics, housing, and water access have all been significantly improved by the Project, and the vastly improved roads and communications networks - including the area’s first-ever cell phone tower - has contributed to the development of a money economy that was previously inconceivable in the area.

This case study report is a comprehensive document, in which the methodology and the various rightsholders are well defined. The assessment is structured along three main subjects; the context, the project and the company. They are all discussed following different catalogs. These are for example; labor, health, environment, political/legal, social and economic. The final part of the report consists of the special topics HIV and the fear of radiation.

This is a draft version, pending the Company’s submission of an HIV Policy and the filing of a bi-annual environmental monitoring report, which the Government of Malawi expects to have by late-Spring 2010. Though conclusions cannot be made without these key elements, all evidence suggests that the Kayelekera is an extremely rights-responsible project - a model for other Projects planned in remote areas with no mining history.

Nomogaia invites public comments to ensure their document is as accurate as possible.  

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