Resources

ASGM in Burkina Faso increasingly relies on cyanide, intensifying concerns about environmental contamination and human exposure. This study assessed free cyanide levels in water and soil across three ASGM sites—Zougnazagmiline, Guido, and Galgouli. 

Within the context of "...the capture of key eastern trading hubs and gold-rich territories by M23 rebels backed by Rwanda in early 2025" this report investigates how Congolese gold continues to flow through formalized export arrangements while conflict continued to rise and armed groups dominated gold-rich areas.

 A new report from the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) and the IGF maps over 100 Sustainability Standards and Initiatives operating across value chains to clarify how these interact with laws, regulations and policy commitments, and how they might enhance environmental governance rather than undermine it. 

This report recommends that to safeguard northern Ghana from potential future exploitation, it is necessary to accelerate ASGM formalization, strengthen border security and intelligence sharing, disrupt illicit financial flows, enhance community-level early warning systems and address Fulani grievances.

This report series analyzes the forces behind illegal mining in Ghana, its geographic expansion, and the networks that benefit from it. Drawing on three years of fieldwork, remote sensing, interviews, and desk research, Part 1 focuses on the Western and Savannah regions, showing how unlicensed artisanal and small-scale gold mining has increased in scale, sophistication, and environmental and social impact. Part 2 will delve further into the illicit gold supply chains and financial systems that sustain the trade.

The report provides a comprehensive analysis of ASM’s current state, including tools, techniques, and technologies across the mining life cycle, along with addressing crosscutting issues like monitoring and enforcement, occupational health and safety, access to finance, and access to information.

The study reinterprets the economics of ASGM by focusing on net price discovery—the real value miners retain after subtracting production costs, environmental harms, and rents captured by more powerful actors, rather than simply looking at gross revenues or total output.

This new publication presents an assessment of how projects funded by the Specific International Programme (SIP) under the Minamata Convention integrate considerations related to women and girls in their design and implementation.