Artisanal miners in developing countries

The economic and financial crisis has boosted the demand for gold. High gold prices are encouraging hundreds of thousands of small-scale miners throughout the world to turn to gold mining and to extract this precious metal using the simplest of tools. Against this background, BICC and the Südwind Institute have launched a joint project which uses the examples of Peru and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to study the question of what measures can be taken to improve conditions for artisanal and small-scale miners—including in particular the certification of ‘fair’ gold. The two country studies are funded by Misereor, the Church Development Service (EED), the North Rhine-Westphalia Foundation for Environment and Development, and the Foundation for International Dialogue of the Savings Bank in Bonn.