The Mining Districts are strategic zones having geographic and geologic continuity and, where mining has become an economic activity affecting social interest. In said Mining Districts, the producers and private contractors involved in legal, competitive and sustainable mining businesses, as well as other institutions, social organizations, trade-unions and support groups, together with those generating knowledge and technology, along with territorial institutions, all carry out the planning and management of the production of improvement along with the sustainable competency of all mining production chaining. All of the former, accomplish these goals stressing meanwhile on the territorial considerations, and focusing on mining businesses, simultaneously with the institutional part, whilst pointing out the vision, the political outlook and the “Development Planning” of the Country itself”.

As its name indicates, the Managerial Tools of the Mining Districts are technically established guidelines which aid in the acting of a specific District in its interacting with other districts of the Country. The main managerial tools of Mining Districts are:

The Productive Chaining Baselines

Operate by enabling local miners to share their knowledge with others in sub-regional meetings, thus, allowing setting the guidelines for the technologically competitive relations of said chaining. The processes of each chaining as well as its fundamental characteristics are established during the workshops at the Meeting. Hence, it is then possible to identify the gaps or difficulties affecting competitiveness, according to the prototypical model vision shared by all participants regarding what perfect mining business should be. This exercise favours identifying the present knowledge and expertise level of local miners, what they are striving for, the extent to which their failures may have been affecting them, along with their suggestions regarding possible solutions to those problems.

The Territorial Baselines

Operate by enabling local miners to share their knowledge with others in sub-regional meetings, thus, allowing setting the guidelines for the technologically competitive relations of said chaining. The processes of each chaining as well as its fundamental characteristics are established during the workshops at the Meeting. Hence, it is then possible to identify the gaps or difficulties affecting competitiveness, according to the prototypical model vision shared by all participants regarding what perfect mining business should be. This exercise favours identifying the present knowledge and expertise level of local miners, what they are striving for, the extent to which their failures may have been affecting them, along with their suggestions regarding possible solutions to those problems.

Strategic Environmental Evaluations (SEE/EAE/in Spanish)

This is a tool enabling the identification – for each and all Mining Districts – of the actions generating an impact facing the management and resources, along with factors possibly affected by said actions. Therefore, Evaluations will favour setting the guidelines and limits to warrant that mining projects be carried out in harmony with the natural environment, while maintaining a wholesome vision rather than an isolated vision, as it happens at this present moment with the environmental impact observed in each productive unit. We hold in prospect that the SEEs become the shield or screen which will determine the fundamental aspects to keep in mind in all Environmental Impact Studies, while monitoring the fulfillment of all the terms established so as to authorize mining exploitation of a set District.

Programs of Sustainable Competitiveness

Springing from the three former tools, Districts will have the elements necessary for the formulation of their Sustainable Program of Competitiveness. Said program will be the means for questioning existing national, regional, and local planning systems as regards the mining territory. This should be accomplished with the strategies needed to close already established gaps in the processes of productive chaining. To be kept in mind are the vision of the 2019 Mining Strategic Plan, the 2032 Colombian Vision, and the Competitiveness Internal Agenda presented at the encounter “Colombia Competes 2007 ” for the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Tourism, the National Planning Direction and the Higher Counseling for Competitiveness.

For those areas having progressed in the identification process of their Mining Districts, having Competitiveness Agendas and/or Mineral Sustainable Exploitation Programs (PASM), they may resemble the Sustainable Competitiveness Program of the Mining District.

Projects and Business Plans

They will be the fundamental tool for territorial, institutional and mining-business Development of Mining Districts. These tools will favour obtaining social investment and improvement funds, as well as financial investment funds for the development of technological business opportunities in the area. They will also favour the processes of investment banking, together with co-financing banking. Their results will also be judged according to indicators linked to territorial competitiveness indicators, and as per mining business competitiveness so as to observe their effect or impact on the results expected by the District.

Markets and Business Bourses

Even though, more than tools, they may be communicating and negotiating strategies, one of the main weaknesses and flaws of the Colombian regions lies in the methods of promoting their investment processes involving public and private sectors, as regards national and international fields. In this sense, the organization in charge of the District will be able to structure through clear and precise handling the logistics and requirements needed for motivating the understanding between local businessmen interested in investing in the territory. This will have to be carried out, according to the vision and business opportunities identifiable for the region, while keeping in mind the business plans and projects of each mining group.

Technological Platform of Mining Districts

This is the tool for managing Mining Districts. It identifies guidelines for all of the former and makes more viable the operational form of said Mining Districts by reducing bureaucratic costs, and by making easier public-private interacting at the local, national and international levels. The management units performing the work of the territorial Districts will be able to perform their duties in a more efficient manner through said platform. Thus, they will leave a direct and permanent registry of said work, while simplifying the monitoring of agreements, commitments and accomplishments carried out by the institutions and associations interested. Said Platform will begin operating under the domain www.distritosmineros.gov.co, with a direct link to the Ministry of Mines and Energy. Once accomplished, the application of the Strategic Plan of Information and Communication Technologies of the Colombian Mining Sector, will become part of the Colombian Mining Information System (SIMCO).

During the establishment of each Mining District, those taking part in so doing will decide which should be the most convenient organization in order to accomplish the purpose: be it upon a model already existing in the territory or by creating a new organization, by mutual agreement. Nevertheless, each organization will have a group of consultants able to decide and a management unit with the following main characteristics and duties:

A Consulting and Decision Making Group Which Will be Called the “Mining Competitiveness and Sustainability Council”

Made up of from five (5) to nine (9) members, according to the needs of each District, as follows:

1 Representative of the Departmental Territorial Group
1 or 2 Representative/s of the Municipal Territorial Groups belonging to the District
1 or 2 Representative/s of trade-unions present in the District
1 or 2 Representative/s of the producers or businessmen who are not guild or trade-union members of the District
1 or 2 Representative/s of academic, scientific or social organizations of the District, linked to sustainable mining

The appointment of said representatives must be performed at open and public Plenary Assemblies summoned yearly by each Governor’s Office jointly with the Ministry of Mines and Energy. In said Assembly, lists can be presented with the names of possible candidates for the corresponding voting. Their names can also be chosen by work groups of representatives who can unanimously chose their candidates. Nevertheless, the Governor’s representative will be the one coordinating and guaranteeing the legality and perfect completion of the proceedings.

Each one of the members appointed at the Council must be free to speak and to vote.

The Mining Competitiveness and Sustainability Council will pass the proposals and programs of the District, will aid in everything concerning publishing and disclosing strategies, will establish the guidelines of the Managerial Unit, and will help in the management processes required for reaching the goals of the District. All members will work ad-honorem and they will have to prove that they are ethically capable of placing common interest before private interest based on their own personal values. Furthermore, those members must show that they have neither legal problems pending nor that they are involved in penal or fiscal processes. When it comes to mining producers and businessmen, they must also confirm that they are in the legal conditions required for operating said mining business.

Environmental authorities, as well as national and regional mining authorities, together with all those groups the Council may consider adequate to participate, can and will be invited.

An Executive Organ: The Unit of Mining Management

The outreach of the management model of the Mining Districts having been established in each and every one of the territories, it will then be possible to establish in a participative manner the technical, organizational and functional outline of the Management Unit or of the team who will carry out the executive duties of each District. Furthermore, said team will be in charge of keeping all information data up-to-date, and of defining the Sustainable Competitiveness Programs, projects, business plans, events and business markets. It will also take care of agreeing on territorial marketing strategies, supervising the funding and execution of projects, as per the norms and agreements established by the Mining Competitiveness and Sustainability Council.

Basically, the duties of a Mining District Organization are Planning and Management.

The Ministry of Mines and Energy has been conscious of the importance of strategic consolidation of a management model for sustainable productivity and competitiveness of Mining Districts in Colombia, with the idea of establishing it as a standard. Said standard, while making emphasis on the mining possibilities, must go beyond the diverse rural aspects. Therefore, it established a technical cooperation agreement with the “Fundación para el Desarrollo del Quindío”. The FDQ is a foundation whose methods and managerial systems were emphatically recognized by the World Bank and by the FOREC, during the reconstruction process of the Coffee Growing Region, as an “INNOVATIVE TOOL FOR DEVELOPMENT”. Leading to its participation in national and rural development, backed by the SENA, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, the INCODER, and working on management models geared technologically towards development.

Thus, the national coaching team is made up by the Production and Competitiveness Group of the Mining Direction of the Ministry of Mines and Energy and by the FDQ. Their goal is promoting the creation and consolidation of Mining Districts in Colombia. Based on a practical management model, simultaneously complete and which will ultimately set guidelines for mining in the Country, as per the 2032 Colombian vision, so as to set itself within the three most competitive countries in Latin America.

The Tutoring/Escorting Program comprises four phases:

Identification and Preparation, 1st. Year

During this year and, as its name indicates, the Country Districts will be identified, their relevant aspects will be pinpointed and the management model of their fundamental aspects will be established.

Strengthening, 2nd. Year

During this year, the national coaching team will back up the setting up and consolidation of the managerial units of Mining Districts.

Classes and Teachings, 3rd. Year

During this year, the coaching team, while relying on the experience of the Districts in operation, will back up the structuring of definitions and adjustments to their management models.

Gathering Results, 4th. Year

During this year, the strategies necessary for sustaining Mining Districts will be enforced, since said Districts will become territorial planning and management units, as well as national mining competitiveness units.

For the development of its work, the National Coaching Team, together with local authorities, and backed by the most outstanding regional organizations and institutions, will structure an agenda of escorting. They will do so in order to establish the progress chronogram during the various stages required by a Mining District for its development: Conformation, Operation, Consolidation and Sustainability.

As per said agenda, and following the methods: “Learning by Doing” and “Shared Thinking”, we will make our way step by step until we reach the Management sustainability of Mining Districts. In order to do so, the National Coaching Team will begin performance cycles which the region will have to accomplish until they obtain partial results. Once a cycle is completed, we will proceed to the following cycle until reaching expertise in all the management tools, together with the dynamics of practice for the Districts in operation.

For further information, and for a more thorough look at each and every one of the former aspects, all of those interested may contact the production and competitiveness team of the Direction of Mining of the Ministry of Mines and Energy, as well as the Tutoring/Escorting Team of the FDQ, at the following e-mails:

distritosmineros@minminas.gov.co and fdquindio@fdquindio.org