Artisanal Gold Council Blog

Three professional mining engineers that have chosen to make careers in the artisanal gold mining sector and are busy helping to improve it onsite in Indonesia, 2019; left to right: Sixto Aguero, Abrar Ridhollah, and Yolanda Hantari. When asked what the Artisanal Gold Council’s mission is and about my own vision for the improvement of the artisanal gold mining sector, I explain that it is mainly two simple things. First, it is about the improvement of the artisanal gold mining sector writ large so that it can better perform its role in delivering development to the rural poor, essentially helping the sector to deliver the UN’s sustainable development goals (SDGs). And secondly, that the approach we use to do this, is professionalization, that we aim to professionalize the artisanal gold mining sector. In fact, professionalization of the artisanal and small-scale gold mining sector (ASGM) is largely what the Artisanal Gold Council does. To draw attention to this approach, I ...

The Miami Herald in 2018 and now Buzzfeed and the NYT in 2019 have published, once again, the typical easy story on alluvial gold mining in the Amazon: The very simplistic and oft repeated "mining is bad" story. They cast a pall over any and all that are involved in artisanal mining. What they report is not entirely untrue, but it is far from representative of the vast world of artisanal mining in the 82 countries where it occurs. Worse though, is that stories like this damage the fragile peace that has been obtained between governments and artisanal miners the world over during the last decade. The peace has been largely brokered by the UN and the OECD with their initiatives on mercury pollution (the Minamata Convention) and transparency (Due Diligence in the Gold Supply Chain). Mostly what the UN and OECD have championed though, is recognition of the huge development opportunity the artisanal gold mining sector represents. Helping the sector become a responsible one c...

As the price of gold rises, what opportunities are there for countries with artisanal gold mining sectors? Here I am not talking about the miners but rather the countries that are endowed with deposits of artisanal gold. This is an interesting topic in the new context of rising gold prices and the emerging Artisanal and Small Scale Gold Mining sector (ASGM). The potential role of ASGM gold in the monetary system and the geopolitics behind central bank reserves is worth a thought. Most of the major central banks have been accumulating gold over the last decade, with some like Russia and China doing so aggressively. So how does the artisanal gold sector fit in? It does somehow!  Artisanal gold represents US$20 billion per year of "reserve currency" (~500 tonnes) flowing out of 82 host countries. Its movements are not yet well tracked. If governments were able to collect a normal level of royalty (let alone corporate taxes) then they would have a "gold stream...

What happens to the Artisanal and Small Scale Gold Mining sector (ASGM) when gold moves from 1200$ to 1500$ in less than a year? That is a 20% increase. Its nature (largely unregulated subsistence labour) means it can respond quickly relative to the large scale industrial gold mining sector. Many short term needs are met overnight and that ripples down. That could mean 20% more people could be employed in ASGM, which would mean 2 million more miners globally if the 10 million miners in 80 countries estimate is used as a basis. 10 million miners is the lowest estimate in the literature today. Or it could mean the existing 10 million people have 20% more free cash. Either way it is a 4 to 5 billion USD windfall to the economy of the ASGM sector. That is about 8 million new Chinese motorcycles. Or its a mix of new motorcycles, more people, and more community wealth. It is about 3% of the global development assistance budget from all countries for all purposes. Now obvious...