Artisanal and Small-Scale Mining

Artisanal and small-scale mining is a largely informal economic sector that includes workers around the globe who use their hands, basic tools such as picks and shovels and low-tech equipment such as bulldozers and more mechanized equipment to extract from the earth vital metals such as cobalt, tin, tungsten and tantalum, as well as gold, diamonds, gemstones, coal and more. Artisanal mining can be among the hardest labor that humans undertake. Artisanal mining takes place in nearly every country in the world, from Africa to Asia to the Americas.

Artisanal and small-scale mining provides a vital livelihood for about 42 million people around the world, with tens of millions more people also dependent on the sector, including family members and small business owners along the ASM supply chain. About 30% of artisanal miners are women and about 70% are men. Most artisanal miners live in Sub-Saharan Africa and Asia. Miners often choose this work despite the challenges because there are few other opportunities available to them for generating the same level of income. By contrast, small-scale miners are often rural entrepreneurs and have formal or informal financing for their work and machinery. Many people also turn to ASM for seasonal labor, often moving between ASM and agricultural pursuits. For example, in West Africa, the ‘farming miner’ and ‘mining farmer’ is a common example of rural people mixing livelihoods at the base of global supply chains.

A significant portion of metals such as cobalt, copper, tin, tungsten, tantalum and iron are produced through ASM. These metals are critical to the world’s economies – necessary for computers, mobile phones, airplanes, medical devices, rechargeable batteries and much more. And more than 80% of the world’s gemstones are dug by artisanal miners. ASM also provides an important livelihood for tens of millions of workers, many of whom live in poverty and have few other options for earning income. ASM is an important driver of development in communities across the world.

Due to the nature of the work and informality, the ASM sector has a variety of challenges. ASM workers routinely face exploitation, unstable incomes and health and safety hazards such as tunnel collapses and dust-borne lung diseases. Artisanal miners often work without safety equipment and have no safety net or formal options for assistance if they are injured or become sick because of their work. Human rights abuses and child labor are common in some mining areas. Environmental damage caused by ASM can be significant, including land degradation and water pollution. In artisanal gold mining, for example, the use of mercury is common and causes human and environmental contamination. However, these challenges are solvable.

While artisanal and small-scale mining are indeed different in terms of degrees of mechanization, they are often grouped together as ASM because they face many similar challenges. This can include securing the correct permits for legal mining, engaging in legal (formalized) trade of their product, paying taxes, environmental and social compliance, successfully avoiding conflict and corruption, securing financing for their day to day work, understanding acute and chronic safety risks, complying with labor laws, using greener and efficient technology, accessing more market opportunities and so on. While large-scale miners can face some of these, artisanal and small-scale miners routinely face all of these challenges in rural contexts. 

Turning our backs on artisanal miners, some of the most vulnerable laborers in the world, is not the answer. As long as the world demands these minerals, artisanal miners will continue to dig for them. Pact believes that local communities including artisanal miners have the right to safely benefit from the mineral resources around them. Rather than banning ASM, which isn’t practical, stakeholders throughout the sector must work together to improve and formalize ASM so that is safer, more productive, environmentally responsible and free from abuses. These efforts should include governments, the private sector, NGOs and mining communities – all of which stand to benefit significantly from ASM formalization.

Pact’s has been working to improve the ASM sector and the lives of artisanal miners for more than a decade. Currently operating in more than a dozen countries in Africa, Asia and South America, Pact’s technical experts work in partnership with governments, industry and artisanal miners themselves to make ASM formal, safer and more productive and equitable. 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 mineral resources by using them more sustainably. Go here to learn more about our current mining programming. 

Formalizing the artisanal mining sector is the key to making the most of ASM while mitigating its negative effects. If approached in an inclusive and comprehensive manner, ASM formalization can making mining safer and more equitable and lucrative for miners; ensure environmental responsibility; vastly reduce human rights abuses, conflict financing and child labor; help industry to responsibly procure materials to meet consumer demands; help governments in the developing world to increase tax revenue from mining to pay for vital social services and public infrastructure; and much more.

Our team includes experts across the globe whose experience spans technical field work, security and human rights, governance and transparency, economic empowerment, sustainable enterprise and livelihood development, corporate responsibility and international best practice, mineral traceability and supply chain management, gold and mercury reduction, child labor reduction, data use and more. Our team includes former miners and multi-disciplinary experts based in Africa who are working in their home countries.

We partner with all relevant stakeholders, among them governments, industry, local organizations, other NGOs and multilaterals, and artisanal miners themselves. Our partners have included USAID, the U.S. Department of Labor, the World Bank, Gemological Institute of America, the International Tin Association and companies including Trafigura, Microsoft, Google, Dell, Boeing and Qualcomm. Go here to learn more about our current mining programming.

For mid-chain or retail placed companies - In certain geographies, we can do spot checks and long-term monitoring of supply chains. We can help companies understand their supply chains, prioritize materials and design and deliver thoughtful in-country and regional response efforts.

For larger companies and industry associations - We help companies and industry associations design, implement and monitor inclusive traceability solutions.

For larger-scale mining companies - We can help scope and implement mining co-existence and peacebuilding efforts, and we can assist in improving resilience and economic livelihoods within operational footprints.

For international funding agencies - We help private, bilateral and multilateral funders understand and respond to systemic challenges facing marginalized rural producers.

For governments - We help motivated governments collect data, design data-driven solutions, design cutting edge formalization strategies and co-implement them.

With the World Bank and other partners, Pact created Delve, a global online data platform on ASM. It is available at delvedatabase.org. We launched Delve to help solve a lack of data that is undermining the ASM sector, obscuring its contribution to development, and perpetuating a narrative that says ASM is dirty, chaotic and inherently bad for the environment and developing communities. We believe better data will reveal a different picture and lead to better decision-making, policies and interventions.

Artisanal mining contributes both positively and negatively to the SDGs. Even in its informal state, ASM makes positive contributions to almost all of the SDGs, but – partly because of this informality – also has negative impacts on most of them. If approached in an inclusive and comprehensive manner, formalization can help mitigate many of the sector’s negative impacts and amplify its positive impacts on the SDGs. Learn more here.