For small-scale gold miners and cocoa farmers in Ghana, building ‘shared ground’ lays a foundation for lasting peace and economic prosperity

“Precious! Minerals! Cocoa! Ghana!” 

These were the call and response phrases echoing around a tiled room during a recent workshop in Bibiani, Ghana. The event, a collaboration among Pact, Solidaridad, and the Ghana Farmer’s Cocoa Association (GFCA), was designed to bring artisanal and small-scale gold mining (ASGM) and cocoa farming communities together. Over two days, 55 participants undertook role-play exercises in conflict management and advocacy efforts to operationalise a previously co-designed Cohabitation Action Plan (CAP), identifying detailed tasks and assigning roles and responsibilities for immediate implementation. 

The workshop was part of Pact’s 12-month peacebuilding project to increase community cohesion between cocoa farmers and gold miners in Ghana and develop the resilience and sustainability of both sectors.​ The project, known as Shared Ground, is funded by the Chocolonely Foundation, which supports projects and organizations that contribute to prosperous cocoa growing communities in Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana, facilitate systemic change, and challenge the status quo. Our project workshops are engaging stakeholders in social dialogue where gold mining and cocoa farming communities come together to share their perspectives, develop mutual understanding, and identify action points for conflict resolution.

A locally led approach

Ghana’s Minerals Commission, responsible for developing, coordinating, and monitoring implementation of the country’s mineral sector policies, has also been a key participant in Shared Ground. The government agency runs eight Small-Scale Mining District Centres in Ghana’s key ASGM regions, including in Bibiani. Emmanuel Dzivenu, an Assistant Officer with Minerals Commission Bibiani, is dedicated to providing technical services and health and safety training for small-scale miners and helping them to register and obtain licenses. He had this to say about the workshop: 

“[Shared Ground] has been one of the major programs between the miners and farmers, and mostly the farmers, who assume that all the miners are illegal, but we do have the licensed miners who try to do the right thing. With the case study we did, it has broadened their  understanding so they themselves brought up solutions for problem. I think the workshop has done some of our job for us by resolving the dispute issues between the farmers and the small-scale miners.” 

This sentiment of dispute resolution, peacebuilding, and shared solutions developed by miners and farmers themselves was also echoed by another government representative, Douglas Danso, Municipal Development Planning Officer for the Bibiani Niaso Municipality, who noted that, “the project has come at a very good time,” with coexistence between miners and farmers being one of the most useful outcomes. 

“Before the workshop, there was a lot of chaos,” Douglas said. “They saw themselves as enemies.” 

Douglas also highlighted that the project was just the start, as he hopes to continue and expand impacts to other communities through locally led steering committees and “the basis, strategies, and means” developed through Shared Ground workshops. 

The focus on locally led development is key to Pact’s approach and successful long-term development outcomes. Indeed, the CAP was co-developed by local stakeholders during several workshops and identifies actions that are not dependent on any additional financing or project support. Instead, they are owned by existing structures and stakeholders who can hold each other accountable and ensure action. One example from the CAP is mining companies committing to consult landowners and cocoa farmers from the start and throughout mining activities, with oversight from the Minerals Commission and Ghana National Association of Small-Scale Miners (GNASSM). 

Changing narratives

Another key theme emerging from the workshop was the change in language used to describe relationships between miners and famers – exemplified by Prince Sakyimanu, a farmer who has worked his family’s cocoa farm for 25 years, having inherited it from his father and great grandfathers before.

Prince described how “the farmers and miners are sharing the same ground,” embedding the name of the project into everyday language and recognizing what the two groups have in common. 

“Previously, we were there sharing the same ground, but we were not on good terms,” he said. “You see them making a whole lot of disputes, and sometimes the disputes run into violent conflict. I remember some years ago there was a violent conflict … and one of those violent galamseys got shot and died.” Galamsey is a portmanteau of ‘gather and sell,’ used to refer to informal ASGM in Ghana. 

While Ghana is generally a peaceful country  whose democracy is a critical beacon to wider peace and stability in the West Africa region, this example shows the importance of the Shared Ground project in ensuring that ASGM and farming – the country’s two biggest livelihood employers, supporting 1.9 million people directly – can promote rural wealth creation and peaceful socioeconomic coexistence. Scaling interventions like Shared Ground to more fragile regions and neighbouring countries is therefore vital to making the two sectors, and especially gold, less vulnerable to corruption, illicit financial flows, smuggling networks, organized crime, and even war and terrorism financing – risks highlighted in a World Gold Council report and by Pact’s research in nearby Mali. 

Collaboration and action 

Coexistence and a collaborative approach was something that Cecilia Kofori, a local cocoa farmer, also found particularly important. “At first we were having some disagreements with the miners,” she said, “but due to this program we have settled all those disputes.” Through collaborative activities, Ceilia explained, the workshop has enabled her to “socialise with people, and allowed me to know many people, and gave me the chance to show my gratitude.” These relationships will endure after the project ends, providing a social network to address disputes before they escalate. 

 At the nearby Beava Mine, the outcomes of the workshop – as well as a previous workshop that developed a shared land use plan – were already being put into action. “The workshop has made me aware of the need to construct a separate dam for our residual deposit, and it has also exposed me to the need to consult the community or opinion leaders in our community so as to promote a peaceful coexistence with the mining activity and farming as well,” said Anthony Owusu, a Mining Operator at Beava Mine.

At the site, large water storage ponds are rain fed so as not to divert and damage nearby rivers. The ponds also prevent pollution to farmland by recirculating the water for continued reuse for washing mined materials across sluices lined with plastic mesh that capture fine gold particles.  Additional shared ground measures established prior to the project can be seen on the road leading into the mine, which the mine maintains to ensure it is not damaged by heavy machinery like diggers and trucks, enabling easy access to adjacent farmland, restoring it after heavy rains, and keeping it compacted to prevent dust in the dry season from damaging cocoa crops. It’s these shared, mutually reinforcing and action-oriented interventions that ensure peace and prosperity. 

A proven, replicable, cross-sectoral model 

Most powerful is that Pact, Solidaridad, and the GFCA now have a proven peacebuilding and community cohesion model that can be replicated with gold and cocoa communities in Ghana and neighbouring countries, as well as in other agricultural and mineral commodities. With the gold price at a record high and demand for critical minerals soaring, artisanal and small-scale mining continues to grow as a key livelihood activity for over 44 million people worldwide at the start of our global supply chains. Ensuring ASM delivers on its huge economic and development potential, therefore, also means ensuring ASM is a driver of peace, not conflict.