ASM

Jewette Masinja is a holder of a PhD in Mineral Processing from the University of Queensland in Australia (1994), and a BSc (Hons) in Minerals Engineering from the University of Birmingham, UK (1984). He has over 35 years of postgraduate experience. In the process he has gained consolidated knowledge of mining policy and regulatory analysis. In 1996, under contract to the World Bank, he wrote the current subsisting “Mines and Minerals (Environmental) Regulations, and the Environmental Protection Fund Regulations, which are on the statute books of the Government of Zambia. Dr Masinja worked as a Permanent Secretary in the Government of the Republic of Zambia for four years. He then held the position of CEO of the Tobacco Association of Zambia for about two and a half years. In 1999 Dr Masinja and his wife established a consulting company, providing management, mining, environment, agriculture and natural resources consulting services to the mining industry, and beyond. He still remains CEO of this company to date. In this role he has undertaken and managed a number of large environmental impact assessments, such as that leading to the establishment of the 1.5 million tonnes per annum (USD410 million) Dangote cement complex in Zambia, as well as securing environmental impact assessment approvals for over 700 and 300 communication cell towers from Zambian authorities, for MTN and Airtel respectively. The company continues to provide consulting services to the mining industry in the country and beyond. He work as a Technical Advisor to the Government of Namibia, where he oversaw an environmental, occupational and community health audit of a mineral processing facility, working with a team of over 40 personnel. This audit led to a private sector investment of over USD400 million into the facility, and this has since helped underpin the future of a town in the northern part of the country. He has provided consultancy services to the UNDP and a number of NGOs on policy and legislation, such as Oxfam, Southern Africa Resource Watch (SARW), and The Nature Conservancy. Dr Masinja contributed to the development of the African Mining Vision Governance Framework (AMGF). He joined the University of Zambia in 2008 as a lecturer in the School of Mines, where to date, he teaches undergraduate and postgraduate students. Of note is that he is currently the University of Zambia (UNZA) Coordinator of a postgraduate course on “Sustainable Mineral Resources Development”. This course was developed jointly with colleagues from the United Nations University in Tokyo, and the University of Cape Town (UCT). The course is open to students from the African continent and beyond. The African Development Bank invested over USD1.4 million between July 2017 and December 2021, in this course, a facility over which Dr Masinja Superintended. Dr Masinja is also the Coordinator of the United Nations University Institute of Natural Resources in Africa – The Mineral Resources Unit based at the University of Zambia. He supervises postgraduate students, and has been an external examiner at both Master and PhD level. He was recently appointed as an external examiner of the University of Dar-es Salaam Department of Mines and Geosciences, for the period 2025 – 2027. He has an interest in environmental management in general, and in the mining industry particular, a subject on which, he has published. He is currently serving on the UNZA Senate, and is the Lead of the National Centre of Excellence for Critical Minerals based at the UNZA School of Mines, and is leading a Team of 12 researchers investigating the development of a Zambian designed electric vehicle battery.