Mining has been a driver of growth in many African countries. However, it consumes large amounts of water and energy, and has significant amounts of waste. Consequently, it has significant impacts on the environment and the socio-economy of a country. This effect primarily falls on the urban and peri-urban areas of many African countries. The extent of these impacts can be mitigated partly through regulation to provide minimum standards for operation. Such provisions differ from country to country and the extent of regulation can have a significant effect on the welfare of the affected communities. Using document review complimented focus group discussions, this paper evaluates the role of mining regulation in reducing the impacts of mining activities on the welfare of the urban and peri-urban communities in Botswana and Zambia using South Africa as a benchmark. We find that the Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Act (MPRDA) in South Africa provides a policy framework which ensures environmental protection as well as minimal impacts on communities that are in close proximity to mining activities. Such provisions however, are limited or non-existent in Botswana and Zambia, and any protection offered to communities are usually reliant on the Cooperate Social responsibility CSR) activities of the mines. Which in themselves are minimal and are viewed as benevolent acts of the mining companies. In view of this, regulatory reform is recommended to mitigate the impacts of mining on communities in Botswana and Zambia.

During the past 30 years, Tanzania has experienced successive precious mineral rushes involving artisanal miners. Their settlement, livelihood and housing strategies have evolved amidst high mobility and pursuit of mineral wealth. Cumulatively, the spatial movement of artisanal miners and an associated following of economically motivated migrant service providers have catalysed large-scale "direct urbanisation by relatively makeshift accommodation. In this article, we draw attention to a subsequent 'indirect urbanization' phenomenon, whereby many successful artisanal miners and other entrepreneurial mining settlement residents make strategic house building investments in larger towns and cities. In anticipation of declining mineral yields and retirement from days of 'roughing it' in mining sites, they endeavour to channel savings into housing in more urbanized locations, aiming to diversify into profitable business activities, living a life with better physical and social amenities. This second-wave migration from mine sites encompasses more diverse destinations, particularly regional towns and cities, which accommodate their work and family life cycle needs and lifestyle preferences. Such mine-led direct and indirect urbanization processes arise from sequential migration decision-making. In this article, we interrogate mining settlement residents' locational choices on the basis of fieldwork survey findings from four artisanal gold and diamond mining settlements in Tanzania's mineral-rich regions of Geita, Mwanza and Shinyanga, and from in-depth interviews with miners-cum-entrepreneurs residing in Mwanza, Tanzania's second largest city, situated in the heart of Tanzania's gold fields.

The post-apartheid period in South Africa has witnessed an emergence of a large number of informal settlements in urban peripheries and on the margins of mines. These settlements have been characterised by violence, precarity and uncertainty. Consequently, residents of such communities often resort to insurgent practices in their quest to have access to basic amenities. Using the case of Ikemeleng (which means stand on your feet), a settlement located just outside Rustenburg, this article explores the social transformation of informal settlements that have emerged on the margins of platinum mines in Rustenburg. The article analyses the centrality of community protests in residents of informal settlements' everyday struggles to access basic amenities from municipalities and mining companies. It argues that the etymology of informal settlement names reflects the everyday challenges that residents of such settlements face. The article also analyses how 'service delivery' protests in informal settlements are entangled with the establishment and development of community leadership structures.

In this paper, I wish to question the distinction between urban and rural spaces through gold mining mobility in Upper Guinea. This work is based on an eighteen months' fieldwork in a malinké village, where an increasing number of inhabitants are working in the artisanal gold mines during the dry season. All inhabitants agree that this exploitation has considerably changed their social organization on different levels such as households' economy, gender relations, agricultural work and particularly youth mobility. I wish to question the evolutions that have occurred within the various forms of mining-related migrations, and the way in which they create and characterise spaces.

Gold exploitation in this region is known for centuries, but has considerably increased in the 2000's. This seasonal mobility led to the multiplication of temporary mining camps, depending on the exploitation of the surrounding fields. Indeed, when a mining area is first exploited, miners, but also traveling salespeople, come and settle in the camps during months to profit from the temporary crowds, contributing to the building of a relatively autonomous space and new forms of sociability. Furthermore, during the last few years, the introduction of metal detectors has given rise to more rapid and seemingly more chaotic migrations, implying continuous mobility instead of temporary installation in camps. This paper aims to show how these types of ephemeral spaces, closely linked to mobility, are directly questioning the definition of urban and rural spaces, by introducing the issue of temporality.

Until last year Mozambique was achieving an impressive economic growth and considered as one of the fastest-growing economies worldwide. This growth was due to various factors, namely the investment in megaprojects in the country. Parallel to this economic growth the urban population has grown tenfold in the last decade, and several rural areas started their urbanization process. For instance, the region of Palma in the North East of the country can be held as example. In Palma, the discovery of one of the biggest unexplored gas reserves led to the fast evolving of the offshore Mozambique natural gas industry. Palma changed from a small fisherman village to the operational centre of dozens of oil&gas companies. A new city started to rise. Though, in 2016, the drop of the world commodities prices, coupled with a series of economic and political disturbances in Mozambique, resulted in an economic slowdown. Most of the oil&gas companies fled the country or left only essential staff behind. As a result, Palma stagnated. This article aims to look at Palma's inhabitants and how their rural life was shaken by an urbanization dream that had to be put on hold by now.