This article is a repost from the Sunday Times South Africa from February 9, 2025
The World Bank estimates that artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) directly employs at least 45 million people in 80 countries. Yet the sector’s reach does not end there: an additional 270 million people are working in services related to the sector bringing its direct and indirect employment to 315 million people worldwide. In fact today, ASM is the top non-farm rural employer in most mineral-rich countries of the world, creating individual and family wealth for hundreds of millions of households.
Since the 1990s, ASM’s contribution to major global mineral supplies has grown exponentially—ranging from gemstones to base metals—due to strong international demand. Take for instance, gold where in the 1990s ASM produced roughly 4% of global supply but now accounts for 20%. In the critical minerals space, ASM contributes around 25% of the global tantalum supply, and 25% of the tin that goes into modern electronic goods. Yet all this growth, happening largely outside of regulation, also comes with a variety of harmful social and environmental impacts.
Future growth of the sector must therefore be sustainable and inclusive. As employment in the sector continues to rise, and the demand for minerals remains strong, the World Bank sees an opportunity to rethink support to ASM, focusing on two key pillars: legitimacy and professionalization. In a seminal report published in September 2024, we argue for a renewed approach to ASM, driven by the priorities of governments and miners’ while equally built on a realistic understanding of past successes and failures. The international community has expressed the desire to support governments in scaling up efforts and better calibrating incentives for reforms. There is also recognition of the need for greater coordination amongst technical and financial partners to the sector.
The World Bank’s new approach to achieving sustainable and inclusive ASM through legitimacy and professionalization, focusing on responsive regulatory frameworks, gender equality, environmental stewardship, financial inclusion, access to legal markets, and capacity building for miners, communities, and governments.
Transforming Mining Practices
Given the increasing demand for critical minerals, ASM can become an even more integral part of the global economy. This is especially true for Africa. According to a recent report by the Payne Institute for Public Policy, Africa is home to some 30% of the world’s mineral reserves, and produces 40% of the world’s gold – still a key component in digital technology. Other minerals, such as cobalt, tantalum, tungsten and tin are currently mined in only a select few African countries yet draw significant market scrutiny due to social and environmental risks associated with unregulated ASM practices.
As outlined in the World Bank’s latest report, the continued growth of ASM without effective legalization and professionalization will perpetuate the negative impacts typically associated with unregulated activities including poor working conditions, social vulnerabilities, and environmental degradation. And with some minerals, such as gold, the threats to country stability and risks of marginalisation for communities necessitates a more concerted and collaborative approach, as stated recently by the World Gold Council.
If ASM is to fully contribute to national development and the global economy, there is a need for better support for governments’ ambition to professionalize the sector. This means building on traditional activities such as extension services and capacity building for legal ASM operators while expanding quite dramatically newer fields such as access to finance and domestic commercialization. Our support will have greatest resonance when properly aligned to miners’ and governments’ priorities such as environmental stewardship, occupational health and safety, and domestic resource mobilisation. Given the scale of the task, multistakeholder partnerships can meaningfully advance ASM's role in achieving domestic and international development goals.
Industry partnerships
The industry is already showing a clear commitment to greater engagement, with ASM now firmly “within the tent” at major mining-sector conferences like Investing In African Mining Indaba 2025.
“Artisanal and small-scale mining is a key component of future-proofing African mining,” says Laura Nicholson, Mining Indaba Head of Content & Strategic Partnerships. “When it comes to empowering communities, achieving a just energy transition and maximising Africa's critical minerals endowment, ASM is an integral part of the industry at large.”
Engagements around building sustainable ASM for a growing mining sector must also focus on key touchpoints like capacity-building through industry partnerships and financial innovation to unlock capital for ASM groups and communities. A notable effort in this direction is the Multistakeholder Partnership Initiative for Sustainable and Responsible Artisanal and Small-Scale Mine Development (MSPI). Launched in 2023 by the World Bank and the World Gold Council, this initiative aims to promote sustainable and responsible artisanal and small-scale gold mining (ASGM) in countries by facilitating partnership between leading industrial gold mining companies, governments, small-scale mining entities and downstream market actors. The MSPI builds on a deep understanding of what has and has not worked in support of ASM over the decades with a view to innovation. The MSPI balances development and security interventions, supports host government strategies, invests in necessary domestic commercialization infrastructure, and provides guidance to resolve social conflicts and criminality in gold mining communities.
Beyond large, transformative partnerships, improving miners’ access to technologies that can boost their efficiency and sector knowledge is critical.
Delve, the World Bank’s global ASM knowledge platform, has been at the forefront of raising awareness of ASM’s development contribution by providing essential data and insights as a public good. Complementing this, Delve Exchange fosters collaboration and peer-to-peer learning, addressing challenges miners prioritise – such as environmental sustainability, occupational health and safety and market access – while driving sustainable mine site transformation. Access to data remains a priority for miners, governments and policy makers alike, making the work of Delve even more relevant. Collaborative data collection exercises –such as on COVID-19 impacts or on gender—will be a priority in the years to come.
Artisanal and small-scale mining has the potential to be a key driver of inclusive growth and community engagement for the mining sector in years to come. Industry has a role to play alongside leading international institutions in concretising the opportunity.
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Investing in African Mining Indaba 2025 is the premier meeting place for African and global mining leaders, and a crucial platform for shaping the future of mining on the African continent. The event ran from 3 – 6 February 2025 at CTICC, Cape Town.
