As Africa’s mining sector enters a renewed investment cycle, the emphasis on local content and skills development, as well as environmental, social and governance (ESG) compliance, is reshaping how mining projects are delivered across the continent, highlights workforce solutions company DGC TalentWorks MD Denver Gounden.

DGC TalentWorks, a member of the Dickinson Group of Companies, is helping mining and industrial clients turn these imperatives into strategic advantages through workforce innovation, training alignment and regional partnerships.

The company also provides integrated workforce deployment, vocational training and project capability development across Africa.

DGC TalentWorks’ business model combines technical standards with local empowerment, enabling clients to meet rising ESG and localisation requirements while strengthening operational performance.

Across its operations, the company embeds ESG principles within workforce development, thereby ensuring that social accountability is directly linked to recruitment, leadership and greater skills outcomes.

“As ESG and local-content compliance become critical to securing a licence to operate, TalentWorks helps clients [to] turn these frameworks into strategic levers, thereby aligning workforce development and community participation with ESG goals.

“Our local needs-based approach enables clients to ensure local impact, strengthen stakeholder confidence and demonstrate sustainable value creation,” he says.

Through DGC Workforce Solutions and DGC Africa Skills, local client-based ESG-linked indicators are built into leadership assessments and diversity goals, directly connecting social and environmental accountability to people-oriented outcomes such as local employment, mobility and skills development.

Ongoing skills development and awareness programmes make ESG a continuous learning journey, rather than a compliance exercise, thereby helping clients build teams that embody sustainability, inclusion and shared value in their everyday work, adds Gounden.

Practical Implementation

A practical example of DGC TalentWorks’ impact is evident in the company’s vocational skills alignment project.

This project is undertaken in collaboration with the National Institute of Professional Preparation; BTP-CMA; The National Employment Office; International Organisation for Standardisation’s Safety, Health, Environment, Risk and Quality Management office; Belgian federal development agency Enabel; Kamoto Copper Company; Kamoa Copper; the Ministry of Labour; the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation; and UXi Artisan Development – all in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

In these initiatives, DGC TalentWorks is playing a central role in aligning workforce deployment with internationally recognised skills standards, ensuring that artisanal and technical trades meet local compliance and global competency benchmarks.

“Through DGC Africa Skills, we are working closely with training institutions and accreditation bodies to deliver targeted upskilling and certification programmes that address critical skills shortages. This approach has helped clients reduce expatriate dependency, improve productivity and meet ESG and local-content requirements without compromising technical performance.”

Gounden adds that this shared framework is fostering a regional talent pipeline capable of supporting multiple projects nationally, with the potential to be replicated across borders.

Social Return on Investment, Changing Dynamics

DGC TalentWorks measures the success of ESG-linked training and localisation through capability, continuity and community development.

Gounden notes that capability reflects how skills development and certification improve safety, quality and on-the-ground performance through vocational skills development, while continuity focuses on growing local leadership, tracking retention and diaspora reintegration.

The community component measures the wider human impact of balancing local employment prerogatives against expatriate placements, he says, adding that, for DGC TalentWorks, accurate social return on investment is visible in not only reports but also in empowered people and communities that continue to thrive after the company’s services have been rendered.

DGC TalentWorks prepares teams for the changing dynamics of mining, from digital transformation and automation to ESG and local-content compliance by focusing on adaptability, continuous learning and leadership alignment.

Gounden believes that project management must evolve beyond delivery schedules to include data-driven decision-making, ESG performance and human adaptability, and that as automation and digital tools transform operations, success will depend on leaders and teams that can align technology with purpose and local context.

“At DGC TalentWorks, our message is simple: Africa’s greatest resource is its people. As mining and industrial investment continue to accelerate, the real transformation will come not just from infrastructure or technology, but from the skills, adaptability and shared purpose of the African workforce,” he concludes.