Artisanal and Small-Scale Gold Mining in West Africa

Industrial mining gets the magazine covers. Artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) feeds the world's gold supply almost as much, and it does it with shovels, mercury amalgamation, and bare hands.

The scale

The World Bank estimates 15 to 20 million people work in ASM globally, with the densest concentration in Ghana, Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger. ASM produces roughly 600 to 700 tonnes of gold per year, around 18 to 20% of global mined supply.

• Ghana: an estimated 1 million ASM miners (galamsey)
• Mali: ASM accounts for ~50 tonnes annually
• Burkina Faso: regulated ASM cooperatives feed Swiss refiners
• Niger and Chad: cross-border ASM trade routes via Dubai
• Mercury usage in ASM globally: ~1,000 tonnes per year

Why it persists

For a household in rural Ashanti or Mopti, ASM offers cash income that subsistence farming cannot match. A skilled digger can earn $10 to $30 per day in regions where the average daily wage is under $3. That arithmetic is unbeatable, regardless of regulation.

"You cannot ban hunger. You can only formalise the work that feeds people." Ghanaian district mining inspector, 2023

The dark side

Mercury amalgamation is cheap and devastatingly toxic. Tailings poison rivers. Child labour is endemic in some pits. And the gold often enters legitimate refining streams via Dubai, with documentation thin enough to evade most LBMA-level due diligence. Conflict gold from Sahel jihadist regions has been linked to ASM trade networks.

What good policy looks like

Ghana's Community Mining Scheme, Mali's formalisation drive, and EU traceability rules are all attempts to move ASM into the legal economy. The most successful schemes pair geological mapping (where can ASM safely operate?) with offtake agreements that pay above informal-market prices in exchange for documentation.

Bottom line: a fifth of the world's gold has dirty fingerprints. Investors and jewellers ignoring ASM are ignoring a major chunk of their supply chain.