High militarisationcan have effects on social spending and is usually in response to regionalthreats. Low militarisation comes with its own problems. Countries likethe Democratic Republic of Congo have very low militarisation, which,combined with poor Positive Peace, leads to an inability to maintainsecurity in their territory or prevent outbreaks of internal violence

Active armed services personnel comprise allservice men and women on full-time duty in the army, navy,air force and joint forces (including conscripts and long-termassignments from the reserves). Population data provided bythe EIU.

EXTERNAL PEACE INDICATORS

Miners often work often in unsafe conditions, using only basic protective gearor no protection at all. In only 11 of our sampled mine sites did a majority ofminers wear protective equipment (see Table 8). In 47% of the active mines, noprotective gear was observed

. We note, however, a few limitations ofour work

Second, weask respondents how they perceive the mining sectors’ impacts on their livesand community. DDP is associated with higher perceptions among women ofthe impact of the sector — specifically, their perceptions of mining’s impacts onaccess to clean water, health, and their lives generally

Finally, households in DDP areas reported lower rates of illegitimate taxationby FARDC and higher rates of taxation by state agents than those in non-DDPareas

atal accidents are rare across all mines, and we detectno statistically significant differences in the average number of injuries betweencontrol and DDP clusters.

While 48% of mines in control clusters report visits from theFARDC in the last six months and 39% report illegal requests for “taxes”, only20% of mines in treated clusters report recent FARDC presence and 14% reportrequests for taxes

the sample differed along a number of other dimensions (e.g., non-DDP minestended to produce gold; DDP mines produce 3T)

among women, DDP isassociated nwith improved perceptions of ASM – specifically of its impactson access to clean water, health, and general village life

We find no indication that DDP mines are more productive or cancommand higher prices for their ore, so it seems unlikely that DDP mines canafford higher wages

While risks related to human rights and conflict are often considered the most ‘high profile’ risks from an internationalattention perspective, Better Mining data shows that the Working Conditions / Safety risk category is also key to prioritise.This risk category includes the Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) risk, which was the most prevalent (26% of allregistered incidents) across the sample. The OHS risk across all sites includes a wide variety of incidents, including workersnot wearing PPE, physical altercations between workers on site, consumption of alcohol or other drugs on site, as well asinjuries and fatalities. Another risk included in this category; Worker Rights also registered incidents but in significantlylower numbers than OHS-related incidents. This is explained by the fact that the incident types in the Worker Rights risk(worker protests, strikes) are generally events that are not as frequent as OHS incidents, but carry a significant weight interms of their severity and impact.

Some of the health problems we described are rather specific to women, such as the urinary infections andeverything that has to do with pre- and postnatal care. Other problems affect both men and women,sometimes at different degrees. Still other problems, particularly the ones that are related to workingunderground, are rather affecting men

it should be noted that technological transformationsand mechanization of ASGM similarly have gendered effects. In Kamituga, this is most obvious in the recentintroduction of ball mills. Mechanized ball mills have pushed many twangaises out of work, which has in turnopened possibilities for minyangala and bizalu and has extended the production process almost ad infinitum.

Low agricultural production, combined with high market prices for food, means that many families in Kamitugado not have an adequate diet.

Sanitary and hygiene conditions are precarious in ASGM sites. Toilets are often absent and at one site, workersrelieve themselves in the water, while further on, women work in the water to wash stones

However, there are very few studies focusing specifically on the health and safety of women in the miningworkplace ( Lynas, 2018). A recent scoping review identified few studies that included vulnerable populations,and none focusing specifically on the health status of women of reproductive age or children who were directlyinvolved in ASM activities (Cossa et al., 2021: 13)

The academicunderstanding of the roles and socio-economic position of women in ASM has been greatly enhanced by abody of scholarship focusing on gender dynamics in ASM (Bashwira et al., 2014; Bashwira, 2017; Bashwira &Cuvelier, 2019; Brottem & Ba, 2019; Bryceson et al., 2013; Buss et al., 2019; Hayes & Perks, 2011; Heemskerk,2003; Hinton et al., 2003, 2006; Kelly et al., 2014; Lahiri-Dutt, 2011; Lahiri-Dutt & Macintyre, 2006; Werthmann,2009; Yakovleva, 2007). Some researchers have specifically focused on the ways in which women are affectedby the formalization of ASM activities, including the grouping in cooperatives (Hilson et al., 2018; Muheki &Geenen 2018; Kamundala, 2020).

Apart from the specific risks mentioned above, poornutrition and sanitation, hard physical work, anddiscrimination negatively affect the health of boththe female workers and their families.

Summarizing the findings of in-depth researchwith women miners in the DRC, the 12th casestudy titled “The Women Who Age Too Fast”by five academic institutions in the DRC andBelgium highlights key gendered OHS issuesaffecting women in ASM

While state agents of the Ministry of Mines are present at 77% of the mining sites that IPISvisited (475 of 619 sites of the current project), people usually consider them as ‘exploitive’rather than ‘supportive.’ Complaints about state agent behavior are common.

onsequently, the researchrevealed that formalization and responsible sourcing(particularly traceability) have negatively impactedwomen’s involvement in mining and their income.

While male actors largely dominateASM, the sector remains an important source of revenue for many women. Women can be directlyinvolved in mining, most often transporting and processing minerals. An estimated 5% of the mineworkers (4,907 of 99,594) in the IPIS sample are female. But, more commonly, women participate indirectlyby providing auxiliary services such as food preparation, transportation of consumer goods or water, andshopkeeping in mining communities.Figure 13: Location of Numbi, Nyabibwe and Nzibira in South Kivu province.ASM is, however, characterized by gender inequality and inequality in decision-making across the supplychains. Gender-based violence is also prevalent with prostitution being common in many of the miningcamps. As IPIS wanted to highlight structural forms of violence in the ASM sector, it collaborated withProfessor Marie-Rose Bashwira Nyenyezi (Centre d’expertise en gestion minière/Université Catholique deBukavu, CEGEMI-UCB). Her study analyzed the structural factors that explain gender inequality in ASM in38

IPIS presented other mining site characteristics that seem to playan important role in security and levels of governance, including the mining site’s accessibility andproductivity. Ar

etween 2021 and 2023, IPIScollected information at 829 active mining sites that together employ an estimated 132,320 miners

Second, inaccurate tagging practices102 create substantial risks for structural contamination of mineralsupply chains. IPIS researchers regularly observed the tagging of minerals at trading hubs far awayfrom the actual mining site.

ITSCI was formalized in 2011 and is nowactive in four countries, monitoring almost 2,500mining sites, of which over 1,200 pits are acrosseastern DRC,137 constituting a labour force of over35,000 miners.

In 2014 the cost of ITSCI implementation was estimated to bearound 2 to 4 % of the mineral export value. In 2019, the traceability costs were estimated betweenUSD130 to USD180 per ton.133 More recently, the DRC, Rwanda, Burundi and Uganda, consider that thecharges they have to meet to comply with the ITSCI) certification mechanism are too high. They pay theequivalent of 82% of the cost of the organisation’s traceability system, principally for the labelling ofsacks of ore, compared with 18% for foreign buyers. Yet it is the buyers who obtain most of the profitfrom the sale of the ores

In the DRC, 3T minerals from ASM mines can only be legally exported if they are sourcedfrom validated mines and if the exporter can show the mine of origin and trade route of a mineral batch,the latter is done via a traceability system

only 4% of the 3T mines in Eastern DRC lie in a ZEA.

This pilot opted for a closed pipeline. Around 5,000 miners had regis-tered and been provided with protective equipment to work on the Mutoshi site where machines haveopened the pits, which allows extraction to take place without dangerous tunnel constructions or deeppits.

Both artisanal 3T and cobalt miners face extremely difficult working conditions. This is especially thecase for the majority of miners who extract minerals underground, as this is assimilated to tunnel col-lapses

PIS has observed children under 15 on 11% of the3T mines visited in South and North Kivu and Maniema between 2018 and 2020.

Both artisanal cobalt and artisanal 3T mining in the DRC are regulated by the DRC Mining Code. The firstversion introduced in 2002 clearly aimed at attracting LSM to invest in the country, while the currentversion, enforced in 2018, aims to rebalance the benefits in favour of the Congolese state and the re-sponsibility of the LSM towards environmental issues.

Moreover, comparable proportions of respondents reportedhearing about or experiencing accidents in mines (including fatal accidents), suggesting that precariousworking conditions in artisanal small-scale mines remain a pressing issue

DDP (N = 289) 93 percent 70 percent 7 percentNon-DDP (N = 334) 84 percent 81 percent

State services imposing taxes, are supposed to give the tax payer a receipt upon tax payment. Notproviding a receipt can be considered an indication of an irregular tax transaction. The frequency of notproviding a tax receipt upon tax payment was reported less frequently in DDP mines (7 percent, N = 289)than in non-DDP mines (21 percent, N = 334).

The imposition of Illegal taxation by FARDC or irregular armed groups was confirmed in 17 percent (N =623) of the mining sites visited with a noticeable difference between DDP mines (6 percent, N = 289) andnon-DDP mines (28 percent, N = 334)

The presence of children under 15 working in the mineral exploitation (digging, carrying, washing) wasreported in 39 mining sites (16 percent, N = 238). We noted a strong difference between DDP mines (5percent, N = 110) and non-DDP mines (26 percent, N = 128). Out of those 39 sites, only three were not agold producing site, which indicates that the presence of child labour is far more prevalent in the goldsupply chains

(5 percent, N = 110) and non-DDP mines (26 percent, N = 128)

When comparing data collected on the mining sites during field visits with data from mobilesurveys, it is important to keep in mind the two levels of analysis employed: mining sites and individualexperience and perception.It worth noting that the low number of gold mining sites covered by due diligence programmes meansthat comparing DDP and non-DDP mining sites will inherently be subject to any difference between 3Tand gold exploitations.

The study did not find a correlation between reporting children working in the mines and the presenceor absence of due diligence because 55 percent of respondents reported that they had seen child labourin mines in DDP zones versus 49 percent in mines in non-DDP zones

Artisanal miners extracting gold, cobalt or cassiterite tend to dig deep pit mines anywhere between 1-150metres in depth and of varied horizontal length. Generally, most miners are not formally trained in minesafety and they often work using simple equipment like shovels, picks, chisels and mallets, especially inthe exploration phase. The combination of limited knowledge, lack of technical skills and equipment andtreacherous terrain is known to significantly raise the risk of artisanal mine collapses.

About 77 percent (out of 144) of the respondents said that they are paying a tax or a fee to operate in amining site. The share is slightly lower in areas with due diligence programmes (73 percent out of 113)than in areas without due diligence programmes (90 percent out of 31). W

Median selling price in due diligence vs. non-due diligence context

IPIS surveyors visited mine sites andtrading centres (so-called points de vente) in two consecutive field missions, during which they collectedphone numbers of community members, made observations, and conducted interviews with several keyinformants so as to complete an extensive questionnaire on each mine site (using the OpenDataKit tool)

The presence of children under 15 working in the mineral exploitation was reported in 16percent of the mining sites visited (N = 238), most of them in the gold sector.11 Over half of the mobilerespondents (54 percent, N = 269) reported that they had seen children working in mines in the past sixmonths.

We noticed a strong difference between DDP mines

Further analysis highlighted that people in DDPareas reported witnessing or hearing about accidents at mine sites less often (41 percent) than theircounterparts in non-DDP areas (47 percent)

While this partnership made it easier to implement and manage theiTSCi closed supply chain, the sale of minerals to a single entity likeMMR/CDMC created a monopsony situation to the detriment of theminers (Matthysen and Montejano, 2013; Johnson, 2013). Thus, thebargaining capacity of artisanal diggers over mineral price setting wasdramatically reduced. As a result, diggers often violently opposed theMMR/CDMC’s price-setting policies (Wakenge, 2017).

Today, the ITSCI programme largely dominates the DRC mining sites at such a level that it benefits froma monopsony situation, in which, miners can only sell 3T minerals to ITSCI if they want to enter in thelegal supply chain. More options would accelerate and facilitate the access to a legal supply chain, butalso give more power to artisanal miners to negotiate the value of their production, the selling pricehaving a demonstrated important influence on their revenue.

when considering the median, most of men earn around 29 % more than women

First, iTSCi, which remains the only legal way of sourcing 3 T minerals fromeastern DRC by 2015, created a transnational monopsony through the bot-tleneck position of smelters, effectively de-linking local pricing from worldmarket prices. This increases transaction costs for upstream stakeholders:while transnational businesses manage to buy at artificially lowered prices(iTSCi charges its operational cost on members), miners, cooperatives, andmiddlemen bear the brunt. With the imposition of prices, the economic turn-over of artisanal miners eventually declines. In addition, without comple-mentary livelihood projects that make up for the loss of informal solidarityand pre-financing arrangements (that used to provide a basis for economicactivity in the “informal” scheme), formalisation inevitably reduces livelihoodoptions,

the artisanal mining sector. On the one hand, the traceability systemhas made it possible to exclude certain positions, including those oc-cupied by women in mineral supply chains. On the other hand, makingit mandatory for miners to band together in associations can createopportunities for women to organize themselves as well, in turn im-proving their positions in mineral supply chains.

This has led some women to commit to formingtheir own cooperatives. But while the Lutonde case provides valuableinspiration, it is still the only women's mining cooperative in 3TG. Itnevertheless epitomizes the motivation and desire of women in easternDRC, specifically their drive to take advantage of new opportunities inASM and their willingness to position themselves to derive benefitsfrom activities throughout the supply chain

towards formalization of theartisanal mining sector in eastern DRC has been the emergence of buying monopolies atthe local level. Only comptoirs meeting the standards of the Itsci traceability schemehave been able to get their minerals sold to Western end-users in the 3T industry, andthis has given them the power to unilaterally impose certain conditions on theirsuppliers.

While they includearound 40 mining sites, the overwhelming majority (over 900 sites in South Kivu alone) continueto await traceability or certification systems that would allow them to regain legal access to globalmarkets.

The main source of armed interference is still FARDC. Twenty-seven percent of the miners in our dataset workin a mine where the FARDC extorts profit (15,060 of 55,604 miners). They regularly charge illegal taxes at themines in areas where they are deployed to provide security against armed groups.

For someof the bigger mines, the FPP/AP makes a few thousand dollars per mine each month through lump-sumtaxes on production, on the miners and their dependents, as well as taxes and monopolies over the tradeof other commodities.

adley hasdemonstrated that more mechanized forms of production make more significant contributions to localdevelopment. 56 On the other hand, as ASM in eastern DRC struggles with a lack of governance, highermechanization levels raise questions on its potential impact with regards to the environment, and healthand safety.

TSCi agents pass by Ntufia’s SAEMAPE officers once or twice a monthto collect the documents containing all information on the mineral bags and their tags. These SAEMAPEagents however rarely visit the actual mines. The miners take their production home in the evening, andmineral traders buy in the miners’ camp. Once traders have acquired a sufficient volume, ready for ex-port, they will call on the SAEMAPE agent to come over to label the mineral bags. SAEMAPE agents, andconsequently iTSCi, have no actual oversight on production at the level of the mines.

Similar practices occur all over eastern DRC. In Lubutu territory, gold traders pay a monthly lump sum of30,000 FC (US$15) to SAEMAPE, and 24,000 FC (US$12) to CEEC. In Beni territory, gold traders have to pay alump-sum tax of between US$5 and US$10 on market days. And while cooperatives have to pay in princi-ple 10% of the value of their production, one such cooperative in Beni declared it actually pays betweenUS$5 and US$10 per month and per team of miners to SAEMAPE. 4

cooperatives are subject to elitecapture, as they establish trade monopolies, are organized along ethnic lines (see for example section3.2.1.4 on the cooperatives COMICHA and COMINYA in Kalehe territory), and they do not provide anysupport to miners

IPIS research teams collect quantitative and qualitative data through a combination of observations andinterviews with a selection of stakeholders at and around ASM sites, support villages, and trading hubs.Data collection methods and verification rely extensively on triangulation of sources, and intervieweesinclude artisanal miners, representatives of cooperatives, heads of miner camps, state agents and CSOrepresentatives.

Fifty-six percent of mining sites visitedby IPIS (197 sites) had at least one cooperative in place. This percentage is considerably higher for 3T sites(76% of the total number of 3T sites, compared to 52% for gold sites), as the 3T sector is more regulatedthan the gold sector

Taxation without a receipt’ was for example reported in 182sites, ‘over-taxation’ (asking more than foreseen by legislation) in 127 sites and ‘pit ownership’ by stateagents (which is illegal) in 63 sites.

Firstly, despite that state services visit many sites, the frequency of visits can bevery low. Secondly, in many cases, people consider state agents as ‘exploitive’ rather than ‘supportive.’While state agents are present at 83% of sites, complaints occurred at 74% of these sites. Com-plaints most often include illegal taxation, as well as issues around state agents developing their ownstakes in mining, or threatening miners.

IPIS teams reported on visits by state services at 83% of mining sites

IPIS visited 354 active mining sites, which employ an estimated 55,604 miners (Table A). Gold mines ac-counted for 86% of mines visited, followed by tin, tantalum, and tungsten (3T) mines, which accountedfor 20% of mines (Table B). These proportions are consistent with the larger IPIS database on ASM sitesin eastern DRC

Likewise, IPIS estimates that children under fifteen represent 3% of workers at sites visited (1,614 under-age miners). They predominantly work in open-pit mines, as opposed to underground, and are oftenemployed to wash or treat mineral ores. It is also worrying that at 17 gold mines, children use mercury totreat gold ores.

Women represent just 3% of mine workers at sites visited (1,730female mine workers, out of a total of 55,604). Social norms and security risks act as a barrier to furtherparticipation. Yet women still play an important role in the ASM sector, mainly through auxiliary ser-vice provision. This includes food preparation, transportation, and shopkeeping in mining communities.Women were present at 53% of sites visited, and had greater representation at larger mining sites

Finally, more productive mines having higher number of workers, the number of accidents naturally in-creases with production.

The same goes with ‘child labour’, another criteriafor the scoring that has been observed at 36% of the mines (234 of 654 sites), while these sites employ60% of the mine workers.

Child labor has been detected at one in four ASM

However, the study could not establish whether the minersthemselves earn more revenue as a result. This disconnect, and claims by upstream actors that pricesreceived are still not competitive, may also be linked to the way supply chains are structured as well as theadministrative costs of maintaining industry schemes that they participate in. Related to that, somestakeholders observed that due diligence costs are encouraging smuggling and ‘blending’ of minerals intomonitored sites. In effect, this could lead to some monitored sites off-setting due diligence costs by buyingfrom unregistered small miners at discounted prices. Thus, the concern by these stakeholders is thatcurrent systems could in fact be encouraging localized informalisation

While due diligence generates value for all supply chain actors, it manifests in different (and sometimesuneven) ways. In consultations for this paper, many upstream stakeholders stated that the only perceivedbenefit of due diligence for upstream actors is market access; meaning that for many upstream actors, duediligence efforts do not appear increase the value of their material, though not doing due diligence mayreduce value.

Upstream actors such as exporters, mine operators and independent small-scale miners, in particular, theneffectively face duplicative costs during the audit process; first, the costs of risk assessments of sites theyoperate in or source from and second, the costs of exporter levies and audits they either pay directly orthat are passed onto them

The economic impact of Covid-19 hit ASM communities immediately in March 2020. DRC’s borders withneighbouring countries were closed, exporting facilities (‘comptoirs’) experienced great difficulty toexport and many ceased to pre-finance traders. Consequently, mineral traders ran low in cash and wereno longer able to buy significant volumes, which had a devastating impact on miners’ revenues

The capacity of state services to oversee the artisanal mining sector is extremely limited.

Relying on a combination of mine-level data collected overthe period 2009–2018, and a non-representative survey with 93 in-dividuals (washers and diggers) carried out in two cassiterite mines inNovember 2019, they find that tin miners earn on average between $71and $86 per month. According to the authors, these earnings do notallow a miners’ household to cover a basic needs expenditure basket, butare higher than those of the general population in the country (de Brieret al., 2020, p. 48)

Perks (2011, p. 1122) putsaverage monthly earnings for gold miners between $80 and $150. Basedon a (non-representative) survey among 258 gold pit managers in SouthKivu,5 Geenen (2014: 174) estimates that pit workers earn between $36and $118 per month during preparatory periods, and between $128 and$195 during periods of high production, while pit managers earn be-tween $1180 and $6226 per month during periods of high production.

USAID is supporting projects through implementing partners likeTetra Tech and IOM to enhance artisanal miners’ economic opportunities90 and claims that those effortshave led to improvements, including higher wages for miners. “In some cases...local miners earn doublethe price for certified conflict-free minerals compared to non-certified illegal minerals” and in some casesmore than for smuggled minerals, USAID reported in October.

mproved safety and health standards for miners in somemining areas, organized local advocacy in support of reforms, in-region development initiatives, and the initialimplementation of the region’s first system to assess mines and certify minerals as conflict-free

Enough also found that a number of problems remain, including ongoingsecurity threats in communities near mines, especially gold mines,corruption in the traceability system, limited access to formal markets or alternative livelihoods by artisanalminers, an insufficient number of legal artisanal mining zones, and continued minerals smuggling, especiallyfrom eastern Congo into Rwanda.

large parts of the population survive in spiteof the state rather than with its help.

They lead interveners to privilegeone category of victims over all the others. Even more disconcertingly,they reinforce the problems that their advocates want to address, notablyby legitimizing state-building programmes that reinforce the harassmentof the populations by state officials, and by turning sexual violence into anattractive tool for armed groups.

This article draws on a year of ethnographic research conducted in theeastern Congo from June 2010 to July 2011

another approach hasbeen to safeguard women through supporting alternative livelihoods away frommining – particularly in DRC’s ASM sector.

Meanwhile inDRC, supposedly ‘protective’ legislation has excluded all pregnant women fromthe mining area, regardless of the type of activity they were carrying out andthere have been reports of officials either inadvertently or purposefully misinter-preting the law and preventing breastfeeding women from taking part in ASMactivities

Some of the norms surrounding women’s work in ASM in the DRCseems, whether purposefully or not, to concentrate women either out of the sector ingeneral, or out of higher value roles within the ASM sector (Danielsen & Hinton, 2020),which could be viewed as a form of socio-economic violence.

women livingcloser to ASM mines in eastern DRC are at higher risk of sexual violence than those innon-mining areas, both by partners and non-partners.

The sample of our field study was relatively small, therefore no general conclusion across other 3Tsupply chains was possible

This report builds on already ex-isting IPIS data as well as information that has been collected in November 2019 at selected mining sitesin Itebero (North Kivu) and Nzibira (South Kivu) by IPIS surveyors specifically for this project

As a worker inside a pit and his position as the trusted man ofthe PDG or of the owner, the pit chief is the link between the “managers” and the workers. For thisprivileged position, the pit chief earns more than the miners.

These variables hadbeen identified by IPIS and Levin Sources as potentially affecting the miner’s revenue:• (non-)participation to the ITSCI programme,• (non-)presence of a cooperative,• (non-)presence of an armed group,• (non-)presence of a state agency, and if present, its (non-)interference,• the amount of production,• the number of workers,• distance from the mine to the selling point,• type of minerals (coltan, wolframite and cassiterite),• modalities of miner’s payment (daily, in-kind or in cash after the sale).• Sex of the miner• Type of work done by the worker

More thanhalf of the mining sites included in the scorecard are in the two Kivu provinces (532 sites, representing57% of the total number of mining sites), followed by Maniema (146 sites, 16%) and Ituri (134 sites, 14%).(Table 8)

according to theExtractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) 2018 report based on 2016 data, oil, gas, and miningaccounted for 98.04 percent of exports

mall‐scale miners (ASM representing between1.5 and 2 million people, with at least 40 percent being women)

At the beginning of the implementation of iTSCi, the status of women was not clear: Neitherthe cooperative (CDMC) nor the industry (MMR) recognised women as full diggers in themining process

n DRC, hundreds of people, about 20% of whom are women, make their living either directlyor indirectly from mining.

Worldwide, women comprise up to 30% of the artisanal miningworkforce and are involved in several activities, ranging from labour-intensive miningmethods to the processing phase of mineral exploitation (Hinton et al. 2003). In the case ofDRC, Hayes and Perks (2012) have mentioned that women in artisanal and small-scalemining communities are doubly at risk, because they are living in places emerging form waror armed conflict and because they are often engaged as informal workers.

lack of viable alternative livelihoods in eastern DRC,

This is particularly the case when‘cooperatives’ are supported. These cooperatives are often seen as structures expressingthe interests of miners, but in reality serve the interests of local strongmen.

Artisanal miners are suspicious of thetrend towards formalization, which they see as an attempt by the Congolese state tostrengthen their grip on the artisanal mining sector and which they also consider aprecursor of a gradual transition to industrial mining.

mining operators in the DRC have had no other option than to market their mineralsthrough the Itsci system as this appeared to be the only way to make them acceptable toWestern consumers.

.Congolese artisanal miners also believe the push for further formalization of theartisanal mining sector is part of a larger process that wants to promote a radical switchfrom small-scale to large-scale mining

literature review, sources used include interviews with several industry and civilsociety stakeholders, the authors’ regular attendance of public and non-public meetingsrelated to the various conflict minerals initiatives over the past few years, as well as theauthors’ long-term field research activities in eastern DRC, including specific researchvisits by the authors and their associates for this study, conducted in March 2014 andencompassing northern Katanga, South Kivu and North Kivu.