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Mapping Artisanal and Small- Scale Mining to the Sustainable Development Goals

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Mapping Artisanal and Small- Scale Mining to the Sustainable Development Goals Mapping Artisanal and Small- Scale Mining to the Sustainable Development Goals JORDEN DE HAAN, KIRSTEN DALES, JAMES MCQUILKEN HIGHLIGHTS: • Even in its informal state, ASM makes positive contributions to almost all SDGs, and particularly those concerned with social (SDGs 4, 5 and 10) and economic development (1 and 8), nutrition (2), clean energy, infrastructure, and sustainable cities (7, 9 and 11), adaptation to climate change (13), peace, justice and governance (16), and partnerships (17). • ASM has negative impacts on the majority of the SDGs, and particularly those concerned with human health (SDGs 3 and 6), environment (13, 14 and 15), nutrition (2) social development (4, 5 and to some degree, 10), decent work (8), cleaner production (12), and peace, justice and governance (16). • Depending on the way it is approached, formalization can help mitigate many of ASM’s negative impacts and amplify its positive impacts on the SDGs. • Given the myriad ASM-SDG interlinkages, ASM formalization needs to be planned in an inclusive and comprehensive manner with all 17 SDGs in mind and prioritized as part of post-COVID-19 reconstruction and broader sustainable development efforts. • While the SDGs serve as a useful starting point, it remains essential to analyze ASM in relation to national and regional development priorities and integrate the sector into associated policy frameworks. *Foreword by Antonio Pedro, UN Economic Commission for Africa **Case study by Jorden de Haan (Pact), Peter Kapr Bangura (Director of Mines, Sierra Leone) and Mohamed Abdulai Kamara (Environmental Protection Agency, Sierra Leone) ***Concrete policy recommendations for harnessing ASM-SDG interlinkages AA About the Authors Jorden de Haan is a development practitioner specialized in the intersections of ASM, formalization, socio- economic development and peacebuilding in Sub-Saharan Africa. He holds an MSc. in Local Governance and Development and has conducted field research in Sierra Leone, Eastern DRC, Kenya, Eritrea and South Africa. Currently, Jorden works as a program officer with Pact in Nairobi, Kenya. Prior to this, he worked as a consultant with UNITAR, where he supported African countries in developing National Action Plans for reducing mercury use in ASM gold, and championed the development of the UNITAR and UN Environment Formalization Handbook. Kirsten Dales is an industrial ecologist specialized in ASM. She has authored peer-reviewed publications and policy assessments on land degradation, conservation and land-use planning in rural economies. Kirsten has a decade of experience in development, providing technical inputs on sound chemicals and waste management, land degradation, biodiversity, sustainable forest management, international waters, indigenous rights and gender equality in mining. She holds a BSc. Natural science, MSc. Environment and Management and is pursuing an interdisciplinary Ph.D. in Mining Engineering and Anthropology at the University of British Columbia. Dr. James McQuilken is a Social Scientist specialized in ASM, and Program Officer at Pact Mines to Markets. He has authored and managed the production of 10+ peer-reviewed publications and has over 8 years’ experience in sustainable development providing management, consulting, and technical inputs across a range of rural livelihoods and market systems development topics spanning agriculture, construction, healthcare, and mining. He holds a Ph.D. in Management from Surrey Business School, an MSc. in Environment and Development University of Reading, and a BSc. Geography University of Southampton. About Pact Pact is an international NGO that builds the capacity of local communities, leaders and institutions to meet pressing social, political and economic needs in more than 40 countries worldwide. Pact’s Mines to Markets program (M2M) uses an integrated, market-based approach and brings together government, industry and miners themselves to make ASM formal, safer and more productive. Learn more at https://www.pactworld.org/mines-markets About MMS The University of Delaware’s Minerals, Materials and Society’s education, research and training program is among the first of its kind in the United States that takes an interdisciplinary approach to linking science and policy with environmental and socio-economic issues around extractive supply chains for all consumer industries of minerals, extractives and related materials. Learn more at https://sites.udel.edu/ceoe-mms/. Suggested citation: de Haan, Jorden, Dales, Kirsten, and McQuilken, James. 2020. Mapping Artisanal and Small-Scale Mining to the Sustainable Development Goals. Newark DE: University of Delaware (Minerals, Materials and Society program in partnership with Pact). Available online via http://www.pactworld.org and https://sites.udel.edu/ceoe-mms/ Photo copyright by the authors Design and layout by Jennifer Caritas, Tamarack Media Cooperative Reviewed by Caroline Ngonze (UNFPA), Nellie Mutemeri (University of Witwatersrand), and Dr. Saleem H. Ali (University of Delaware) ISBN 978-1-7353550-0-9 90000> 9 781735 355009 ASM-SDG WheelsASM-SDG MAINLY POSITIVE IMPACTS MAINLY NEGATIVE IMPACTS BOTH POSITIVE & NEGATIVE IMPACTS ‘INFORMAL’ ASM ‘FORMAL’ ASM Foreword The 1993 Interregional Seminar on million people whose livelihoods depend Guidelines for Development of Small and directly on the sector, the contribution Medium Scale Mining held in Harare, to income generation and the multiplier Zimbabwe, was amongst the first global effects the sector engenders through events that recognized the important vertical and horizontal economic linkages role played by ASM in national and rural with other sectors such as agriculture, whilst economies, a far cry from earlier views indicating the environmental challenges and practice which considered ASM illegal and social impacts associated with it. It and combated it accordingly. Since then, notes that notwithstanding the existence of several frameworks including the Yaounde the above frameworks, progress has been Vision on ASM adopted at the Seminar on mixed. First, ample evidence is provided Artisanal and Small-Scale Mining held in that even in its informal state, the ASM sector Yaounde, Cameroon, in 2002; the Africa makes positive contributions to almost all Mining Vision of February 2009; and the the 17 SDGs, but also impacts negatively on Mosi-oa-Tunya Declaration on Artisanal the majority of them. and Small-scale Mining, Quarrying and Development adopted in Livingstone, Rudimentary, inefficient and linear Zambia in September 2018; recognise ASM production models contribute to as both a poverty-driven and poverty environmental degradation, chemical alleviation sector with a potential to improve pollution, wasteful practices and high- rural livelihoods and foster entrepreneurship. grading leading to the sterilisation of ore As such, for example, the Yaounde Vision deposits. Child labour remains a challenge. called for ASM to be integrated in poverty Equally so is the difficulty in assessing ASM’s reduction strategies and in rural community true contribution to economic growth at development programmes. the national level given the predominantly informal state and exclusion of the sector This ‘ASM-SDG Policy Assessment’ builds in national statistics. Yet without such on these narratives and provides a first information the sector will continue complete assessment of the interlinkages to be neglected and off the radar of between the ASM sector and all the 17 policymakers. SDGs simultaneously, a dimension which was not covered in the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), World Economic Forum (WEF), Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment (CCSI) and Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) report Mapping Mining to the Sustainable Development Goals: A Preliminary Atlas, which examined the links between the SDGs and mining with an almost exclusive focus on large-scale mining. Without romanticizing the sector, the Policy Assessment offers a very lucid and balanced 3T miners at Dumac mine in Rwamagana characterisation of ASM pointing to the >40 district, Rwanda Of note is the recognition that ASM accounts on how the next generation of formalisation for 15-20 percent of global nonfuel mineral processes should be designed, to ensure output contributing significantly to the alignment with all 17 SDGs. They must be production of many of the minerals (tin, comprehensive, inclusive and anchored tungsten, tantalum, cobalt, rare earths on a bottom-up, human rights-based and copper) that are key to facilitating the approach. For sure, this must be evidence- transitions to a greener and lower carbon based and supported by a clear analysis of economy. This is but one among several trade-offs to minimize unintended negative reasons why supporting the ASM sector consequences. Good profiling of the can help to respond to the UN Secretary- actors in the ASM ecosystem and a good General Antonio Guterres’ call to “build understating of the political economy and back better” in the path to recovery from vested interests from within and without COVID -19. would certainly improve policy uptake and maximize the impact of the reforms that The COVID-19 pandemic, “a public health are needed in the ASM sector. Finally, the emergency and economic, social and authors provide guidance on integrating human crisis of unprecedented nature”, ASM in national and regional development has “hit the hardest on the most vulnerable, frameworks, and conclude with a case including women, children, the elderly
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