The Kampene Gold Pilot, , DR Congo – Fact Sheet

Background Artisanal and small-scale (ASM) gold mining signifi cantly contributes to the livelihood of more than 200,000 miners and their families in the Eastern Provinces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). ASM activities are mostly informal and supply chains are not traceable. As a result, most ASM gold is smuggled out of the country.

The Kampene Gold Pilot is an on-going initiative contributing to fi nding solutions for legal ASM gold supply chains in the DRC. It forms part of a German-Congolese technical cooperation project: Since 2009, the Fe- deral Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources (BGR) has been supporting the Congolese Ministry of Mines, its technical services and mining cooperatives in improving working conditions, environmental and social standards in the ASM sector, including gold.

The pilot initiative is focusing on ASM production sites around Kampene town, Maniema province. This province has signifi cantly lower confl ict risks compared to other DRC provinces. The area of Kampene is home to >10,000 ASM gold miners, organized in 9 cooperatives and operating 32 gold mine sites. The pilot initiative aims to incentivize legal and traceable gold supply chains including use of novel tracking technology.

Electronic Gold Traceability • Traceability is facilitated through GPS-backed electronic registration of individual gold supply chain partici- pants and gold transactions, with automatic transmission to an online database. • The initiative integrates traceability along existing national gold supply chains from Kampene to and Bukavu, rather than creating an artificial “closed pipe”. • Tracking and tracing of ASM gold flexibly involves miners, traders, and state authorities who monitor tran- sactions. Chain of custody tracking standards consider requirements of DRC regulations, the Regional Certification Mechanism, and the Due Diligence Guidance. • The initiative employs state of the art traceability technology using safe transport bags, encrypted RFID codes, smartphone registration devices and decentralized database access. Implementation Progress and Next Steps • Q4/2016 Technical project setup – Configuration of gold tracking database platform and software; initial registration of gold supply chain stakeholders; continuous on-the-job training throughout the pilot initiative. • Q1/2017 Operationalization – Distribution of traceability hardware and materials to local participants (safe transport bags, ID cards, smartphones, tablets); 235 supply chain stakeholders were equipped with electronic ID cards allowing them to participate in the pilot initiative. • Q2-Q4/2017 Two field testing periods running two months each, with continuous operation of tracking hardware and software and support interventions to create incentives for participation. More than 5 kilograms of gold were traced at the mine site level, and 55 % of gold transport lots were traced until export. • Initial support interventions focused on improving transparency of gold trade, e.g. by introducing electronic scales for measuring gold weight. As a next step, accurate determination of gold fi- neness shall be improved. • An initial report on the pilot initiative is anticipated for May 2018 as a contribution to a national workshop in . The workshop aims to facilitate sharing lessons learnt among the different gold pilot initiatives in the DRC.

Contact and further information: www.bgr.bund.de/mineral-certifi cation

BGR Bukavu BGR Kinshasa BGR Hannover Kampene Pilot Management BGR Project Management BGR Project Coordination Ave Clair 10A, Q. Muhumba, Future Tower, 3642 Blvd 30 Juin, Stilleweg 2, 30655 Hannover, C. Ibanda, DRC Gombe, DRC Germany

Bali Barume, Martin Neumann Uwe Näher, Sebastian Vetter Philip Schütte; Dierk Schlütter [email protected] [email protected] [email protected]