Summary
Date Posted: Tuesday, May 16, 2023 , Base Salary: Not Disclosed

JOB DETAILS:
Program Summary
Project Access is a four years program whose focus is to establish a service-led approach to professionalize Artisanal and Small-scale Gold Mining across Uganda and Kenya. The consortium (The Impact Facility, Chambers Federation, Solidaridad and Fairphone) support artisanal mineral producers in Gold to be responsible, build viable businesses and ready to participate in formal minerals markets. Selected mines are expected to show continuous improvement towards miners’ and workers’ health and safety, enhanced business management skills, decent working conditions, and the reduction and proper management of the use of mercury and other chemicals.

The context
Gold mining is a global business with operations on every continent. Africa produces about 24% of the world’s gold, with gold mining operations in at least 34 African countries including Uganda. It is one of the key pillars of these economies. Global employment figures for the ASM sectors are estimated at 20 to 40 million miners, with Uganda having close to 300,000 miners, of which 31,000 are artisanal gold miners.

Between 70% and 80% of the small-scale miners are informal, ranging from those whose livelihoods rely on subsistence farming to both skilled and semi-skilled workers who migrated to mining areas in search of work. The sector, however, is plagued by low levels of formalization, low adoption of more efficient and effective technology, low capital investment, high labor intensity and relatively simple methods for exploration, extraction and processing.

The Occupational Safety and Health Act (Act 9, 2006), in addition to the Mining Act (2003), are in use to ensure the safety, health and welfare of persons working in ASM. However, the gold value chain is often associated with accidents, mineshafts collapsing and many other health and safety hazards. ASM in Uganda ranges from highly manual, labor-intensive work to somewhat mechanized activities. In both cases, specific hazards and risks are faced by mine workers and operators.

Training expected outputs:
• Detailed training manuals.
• Content handouts given to participants at the end of the training.
• Needs assessment results
• Inception report
• End of assignment report

Training expected Outcomes:
• Miners are informed and well-versed with the prevailing regulatory frameworks regarding occupational health and safety.
• Miners are able to practically design measures to mitigate hazards by employing all available resources in their mine site.
• Miners are able to inspect and address future safety issues and risks, through supervisors as well as through regular refresher meetings.
• Miners are able to Establish an OHS management system at mine level

Problem Statement
The ASGM sector in Uganda is characterized by low levels of formalization and high concerns on issues concerning health and safety at mine sites. Because ASM often has low levels of internal and mine-level controls, miners often give little attention to their own safety or that of others. Consequently, accidents and injuries are at least 7 times higher in ASM than in large-scale mining. Accidents and injuries create an enormous cost for the miner and the whole mining operation as well as the mining industry and the general public.

The training will focus on raising safety and health awareness among underground shaft workers, mine supervisors and surface workers in gold ASM communities at the selected mine.

Objective of the training
The objective of the training is to provide the miners with the necessary skills and knowledge to understand and apply the mining sector’s legal frameworks to their particular on-the-ground context, design practical measures to mitigate occupational health and safety incidents and to develop occupational health and safety management systems at their mine sites through;
• Understanding the particular bottlenecks that hinder ASMs from adhering to safety measures.
• Understanding and classifying health and safety incidents at mine sites and how to mitigate each.
• Understanding health and safety risks at their mine site.
• Understanding safe mine construction (open-cast and/or underground)
• Understanding the health and safety risks posed by mining operations to the surrounding communities.
• How to relate mine health and safety systems to other instruments, eg. Environment protection and technological adoption.
• Designing mine rescue plans and protocols

Methodology:
• The consultant will conduct a needs assessment for the mine site to enable them to tailor the content to the specific needs of the mine, followed by submission of an inception report.
• The consultant will utilize a hybrid approach to the training, with classroom-style sessions supplemented with practical and mine-site exercises.

Responsibilities of Consultants
The composition of the training team is left up to the consultant/ organization based on their internal system, ideas, and logic. However, Project Access recommends that the team comprise one Team Leader (TL) to coordinate/conduct the overall activities and liaise with Solidaridad on behalf of the project. The TL will work closely with Solidaridad M&E Officers and the programme team. In each step and process, consultation with the Project Manager and the M&E Officer are vital.

The consultancy/consultant team will be primarily responsible for:
• Development/design of the health and safety at mine sites manual to be used to guide the health and safety at mine sites sensitization meetings
• Share the training design including process, methods, and checklist with the programme team, collect feedback upon completion of the training,
• Carrying out a pre-visit to the project areas.
• Submit an inception report.
• Orient, train, and carry out field work during the training.
• Submit a final report (a compiled version of the report - both hard copy and electronic version in word format) to the project access team.

Expected Deliverables:
The Consultant should deliver the following:
Expression of interest (EOI) detailing.
• The methodology for implementation of the training.
• A detailed work plan for the training.
• The budget

Inception Report:
• which covers the entire process of the preparation phase.

Draft Report:
• A draft report on the training, present to key staff of Solidaridad and partners of initial findings. The consultant will address the feedback from Solidaridad.

Final training report
• Experts/Consultant’s Profile:
• Consultancy firms/companies/individuals with verifiable research work in the gold/ ASM sector and who fulfill the following requirements are encouraged to express their interests.

Selection criteria
• Should be based in Uganda
• Should have strong experience working with Artisanal and Small-scale Gold Miners.
• Experience in designing and conducting health and safety trainings in the context with artisanal mining
• Relevant academic qualifications in social sciences or development studies,
• Excellent communication and written skills in English and Luganda


Education Requirement: No Requirements

Job Experience: No Requirements

Work Hours: 8

Experience in Months:

Level of Education:

Job application procedure

Applications should be submitted by 21/05/2023. All applicants must meet the minimum requirements described above, those unable to meet the requirement will not be considered. Remember that Solidaridad is an equal-opportunity employer. Each application package should include the following:
• A brief proposal for the study with methodology and work plan (not more than 15 pages). The financial proposal should have a budget with breakdowns of different costs involved, to the finer detail. A budget with aggregated figures will not be accepted.
• Updated CVs for the team leader and team members
• Contact details of 3 references with complete contact information.

Sent to procurement.eca@solidaridadnetwork.org  with the subject line: “EXPRESSION OF INTEREST TO CONDUCT OHS TRAINING FOR MINERS IN UGANDA”


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