Mines to Markets | Home

Primary tabs

You are here

Home » Mines to Markets

Mines to Markets

Contacts

Karen Hayes

vice president, environment, energy & extractives
khayes@pactworld.org

Cristina Villegas

director, mines to markets
cvillegas@pactworld.org

165,000

small-scale miners whose lives we improved last year

Mining provides a livelihood for millions of men and women around the world, many of whom have few other options for supporting their families. Pact’s Mines to Markets program uses an integrated, holistic approach to help resource-dependent communities improve their lives. We bring together government, industry and miners themselves to make artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) formal, safer and more productive. Pact’s efforts are helping to reveal and make the most of ASM’s contributions to development.

Specializing in areas including health and safety in mining, human rights, traceability and transparency, economic empowerment among miners, mercury abatement, child labor reduction, mineral certification and ethical sourcing, we help communities gain lasting benefit from natural resources by using them more sustainably. We also improve governance in the countries where we work, strengthening local, regional and national institutions.

Our mining programming currently operates in more than a dozen countries in Africa, Asia and South America.

 

Stories and Highlights

Karen Hayes selected 100 Global Inspirational Women in Mining 2020

Pact’s Karen Hayes celebrated in 100 Global Inspirational Women in Mining publication

November 19, 2020
Pact’s Karen Hayes, Vice President of Energy, Environment and Extractives, has recently been selected as one of 100 Global Inspirational Women in Mining by Women in Mining U.K. The biennial global...
Sewing apprentices take part in a Pact program that is reducing child labor in mining in DRC by helping older children find alternative means of income. (Photo: Pact)

Combating modern slavery in artisanal cobalt mining is vital to achieving the Paris Agreement targets

October 19, 2020
Coinciding with Anti-Slavery Day on October 18, last week the UK’s Independent Commission for Aid Impact (ICAI) released its review of UK aid spending to tackle modern slavery in developing countries...
Artisanal miners at work in the Democratic Republic of Congo. (Photo: Pact)

Communities affected by Covid-19 receive support from expanded Pact, Trafigura, Chemaf program in DRC

October 12, 2020
The lives and livelihoods of artisanal and small-scale miners were precarious even before the Covid-19 pandemic. About 42 million people around the world work in artisanal and small-scale mining, or...
Women panning gold in Sierra Leone.

Harnessing artisanal and small-scale mining to deliver on the Sustainable Development Goals

September 14, 2020
It makes intuitive sense that artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) – low-tech, labor-intensive mineral processing and extraction – cuts across the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). 
Artisanally mined bricks for construction in Rwanda

Neglected artisanal miners are proven critical for the attainment of the UN Sustainable Development Goals

September 9, 2020
Even in its informal state, ASM makes positive contributions to almost all of the SDGs, but also has negative impacts on most of them.  Depending on the way it is approached, formalization can help...

ITSCI: A decade of success

September 1, 2020
Pact is proud to be the lead on-the-ground implementer of the ITSCI system. This article was originally published in the July 2020 issue of the Tantalum-Niobium International Study Center Bulletin,...
Sewing apprentices cut fabric to make Covid-19 face masks. (Photo: Pact)

In the Democratic Republic of Congo, meet three young people leaving child mining behind

August 10, 2020
Child labor in mining has long been categorized as one of the worst forms of child labor by the International Labour Organization. It is arduous work that exposes children to significant health and...
An artisanal miner works in Zimbabwe. (Photo: Maggie Dougherty/Pact)

As Covid-19 underscores the vulnerability of artisanal miners, Pact and partners gather data for solutions

June 26, 2020
There is no question that Covid-19 is taking a significant economic toll across the developing world. The pandemic is now expected to push 71 million additional people into extreme poverty (those...
Men and women hard at work at a mine site in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Pact joins call for immediate action for artisanal mining communities during Covid-19 crisis

May 15, 2020
This week, Pact joined more than 70 civil society organizations and community-based associations in calling for immediate and concerted action from governments, financing institutions, international...
Chemaf reviews information about Mutoshi with visitors to the site.

World Day for Health & Safety at Work: How conditions are steadily improving for miners, including at one DRC cobalt site

April 27, 2020
Mining provides a livelihood for millions of men and women around the world, many of whom have few other options for supporting their families. Pact’s Mines to Markets program uses an integrated,...