Artisanal & Small-Scale Mining Formalization & Governance Training Course

The Artisanal & Small-Scale Mining Formalization & Governance Training Course equips officials in mining ministries, geological surveys, and regional administrations, together with donor program staff and civil society partners, with the management knowledge needed to bring informal mining into a lawful, accountable, and safer framework. Across much of Africa, artisanal and small-scale mining sustains rural households and supplies gold, gemstones, and industrial minerals, yet it often operates beyond the reach of the state, with weak revenue collection, environmental damage, unsafe working conditions, and exposure to illicit trade. The course treats formalization as a long public management reform rather than a registration campaign. Participants examine why earlier efforts have stalled, including costly and centralized procedures, insecure access to mineral-bearing land, and overlap with large-scale mining titles and customary authority. They compare decentralized permitting, miner associations and cooperatives, designated mining zones, access to finance and equipment, and government-backed buying schemes, and they assess how each option changes the incentives facing miners, traders, local leaders, and public agencies. Participants work with the international references that shape this field, including the OECD Due Diligence Guidance for Responsible Supply Chains of Minerals from Conflict-Affected and High-Risk Areas, the Minamata Convention on Mercury and its national action plans for artisanal gold mining, the Africa Mining Vision, and the EITI. They also address child labor and the position of women in mining communities, occupational health management, conflict between communities and companies, environmental rehabilitation, fiscal design, and the coordination of donor-funded programs with national priorities. The course concentrates on management and governance only and provides no technical mining or mineral processing instruction. The course is delivered through country case studies, stakeholder mapping exercises, policy option reviews, program design sessions, and a final formalization strategy workshop. Participants leave with a sector diagnostic template, a stakeholder and incentives map, a mercury reduction planning outline, a traceability and revenue framework, and a phased formalization roadmap they can adapt to their own institution and to discussions with development partners.