Enabling Small Scale Miners to Weather the Impacts of COVID-19

Challenge

The emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020 threatened people’s lives and livelihoods. The World Bank estimated that the pandemic could push at least 71 million people into extreme poverty. Over 45 million people working in ASM worldwide were particularly at risk due to the impacts of COVID-19 restrictions on their ability to work at mine sites and sell their minerals on the global market. ASM communities were also impacted by the remote location of many mine sites and the limited access they had to health and social protection infrastructure. As global mineral prices dropped and mining sites closed, miners, their families and communities suffered significantly lower incomes at the outset of the pandemic, while facing food insecurity due to increased inflation and general lack of food availability due to road closures.

Approach

To help address COVID-19 impacts in ASM communities, EGPS supported skills, knowledge, and capacity building activities in 22 ASM countries. The activities aimed to improve knowledge on COVID-19 prevention, to build organizational capacity of miners, and to increase exchange of best practices on a variety of COVID-19 risk mitigation efforts. The following approaches were used to address the health, economic, and social shocks that ASM communities were facing:

• Evidence-based: EGPS together with 17 partner institutions completed a rapid data collection exercise from May-July 2020 into how COVID-19 was affecting ASM communities in 22 countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean. It was the only global survey of its nature on COVID-19 related impacts in ASM and had a total of 3,000 respondents. Results from the survey were used to raise awareness of the serious risks facing ASM communities. The World Bank did so by disseminating key results at international events and conferences during the Fall of 2020 (Inter-Governmental Forum on Metals, Mining and Minerals as well as the Kimberly Process Certification Scheme Intercessional) as well as publishing the results in real-time on the Delve website: www.delvedatabase.org, a global platform for artisanal & small scale mining data. To further amplify results, an academic paper was published in early 2021 by the team, showcasing the results. The survey findings formed the basis of fundraising for the emergency response window and defined the priority areas.
• Quick Mobilization of Finance: EGPS quickly raised $3.4 million at the height of the pandemic, despite governments facing reduced budgets as donors diverted resources to their own domestic COVID-19 responses.  The strong support of the trust fund governance body is further demonstrated by the additional $3.2 million provided for the second year of activity implementation.
• Focus on Local Organizations: Capacity building, knowledge transfer, and networking contracts went mainly to grassroots and women-led organizations as well as miners’ cooperatives. Given operational constraints during the initial months of lockdown, this type of implementation allowed EGPS to reach hundreds of remote, isolated ASM communities.
• Targeting Gender Gaps:  Gender-sensitive project design led to gender-focused activities that exceeded the project`s gender-related targets.
• Fiduciary oversight: The project vetted new organizations prior to awarding contracts, held weekly calls with implementing organizations to ensure M&E systems were strong, and customized payment schedules with small organizations to ensure that fiduciary risks were well managed. The project also facilitated monthly peer-to-peer online learning sessions via Microsoft Teams and WhatsApp groups.

Results

The Emergency Response contributed to two outcomes over the course of the calendar years 2021-2022: (i) Strengthening local ASM community benefits for all and mitigating adverse impacts on local ecosystems, and (ii) increased formalization of ASM production, with improved social and environmental performance.

Overall impact and examples include:

• Saving lives: 48,300 people trained in COVID-19 prevention protocols. In the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), using a comprehensive outreach effort, the project strengthened the capacity of 263 safety change agents, supported the development and deployment of a unique training manual, and launched a campaign to promote health and safety practices on 35 radio stations for over 1 million listeners.
• Protecting Poor and Vulnerable People: Sixteen interventions supported alternative livelihoods development inthe face of mine shutdowns in countries including Guinea, Indonesia, India, and Burkina Faso. In Guinea, the project helped 180 women establish three Economic Interest Groups (EIG) and trained them on a range of topics including entrepreneurship, leadership, financial management, and EIG management. The three EIGs established income-generating activities in soap making, dyeing and market gardening. 
• Ensuring Sustainable Business Growth and Job Creation: The project provided capacity building support to ASM cooperatives in 16 countries to improve business practices and create strong financial knowledge. The project also supported efforts towards formalized and transparent trade chains and market access for ASM miners. Through the innovative Virtu Gem online gemstone sales platform, income increased for ASM communities in Kenya, Malawi, and Zambia. From April 1, 2021 - September 1, 2022, gemstones in the amount of USD $59,726.87 were sold on the platform by 12 end sellers in Zambia, 9 in Malawi, and 17 in Kenya, representing multiple mine sites and individual miners.
• Ensuring equal opportunities for women and girls and addressing GBV: Gender-sensitive project design helped start 129 female-led or owned projects, improved women miners’ working conditions, and helped them to build skills. The project supported 13 GBV initiatives in Nigeria, Kenya, Côte d’Ivoire, Burkina Faso, Uganda, Indonesia, Ghana, Afghanistan, Mozambique, and India. In Kenya, the project conducted sensitization training for 108 participants (of which 93 female 15 male), with some men becoming champions and informal spokespersons against GBV.
• Strengthening policies, institutions, and investments:  Project research findings were disseminated, and advocacy sessions conducted with policy makers in the DRC , Indonesia, Colombia, Guinea, Burkina Faso, Uganda, Kenya, Liberia, Mozambique, Nigeria, India, Mongolia, Bolivia and Brazil. In the DRC, as a result of convening government actors, development agencies, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and civil society organizations (CSOs) a framework for collaboration was established between the Ministry of Mines and Ministry of Health regarding the integration of a specific approach to the ASM sector into the national occupational health and safety policy and the inclusion of occupational health and safety policy in the mining code. In Guinea, a roundtable discussed ways to integrate the concerns of women working in ASM into public policies and resulted in a continued partnership with state and local authorities to ensure that these recommendations are implemented.

Bank Group Contribution

The World Bank, through its Extractives Global Programmatic Support (EGPS) Multi-Donor Trust Fund (EGPS)  $6.6 million funding for the project. 

Partners

The EGPS Trust Fund worked with 17 partners on research that informed the emergency response project.

The team mobilized funding from Switzerland, Germany, Belgium, and the European Union.

The project worked closely with 31 implementing partners in 22 countries. This group of partners comprised a range of civic, educational, and sector-focused organizations. The collaboration supported quick delivery of support to the grassroots level where it was most needed. Additionally, these organizations leveraged EGPS support to attract more funding. For example, in Kenya, the partnership with Pact and AWEIK leveraged the project to bring in the Gemological Institute of America to conduct gemstone cutting and valuation training for 242 ASM miners, empowering the miners to receive better prices for their gems.

Looking Ahead

A final report on lessons learned and insights from the program highlighting success stories will be published in 2023.  The World Bank Extractives Unit will begin to draft a new position paper on World Bank support to ASM formalization. The results and lessons learned from this extraordinary global emergency response window will form an important part of the position paper’s recommendations.