The Director of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, Ngone Diop, has made the case for the development of a functional Artisanal and Small-Scale Mining Enterprises Hub on the continent.

The development of the hub is expected to drive economic development and help stakeholders solve shared problems in the mining sector.

Diop argued that for Africa to accelerate its economic development, artisanal and small-scale mining must be harnessed as a tool for continental transformation, as envisaged within the ASM programme cluster of the African Mining Vision, 2009,

Pointing to the continent’s abundant mineral wealth, she stated that there is “a historic opportunity” for Africa, and her countries, “to transform lives,” if these mineral resources are properly harnessed.

Speaking at the Mining in Motion side event held under the theme, ‘Developing a functional artisanal and small-scale mining hub in Africa in Accra on Wednesday, she said the hub will build on the expertise of existing African institutions, national agencies and miners’ organizations.

Diop noted that The small-scale mining sector’s potential for transformation is underscored, for instance, by its about 13.2 million direct employments on the continent.

ASME Hub forms part of that wider effort to shift Africa from a continent that exports raw material to one that harnesses its mineral resources.

To bring this dream ASM-induced socioeconomic transformation to fruition, she reiterated calls for the development of associated businesses within the mining sector that process minerals, provide equipment and services, add value and make jewellery, and connect producers with markets.

She said, “the development test is straightforward. Policies and initiatives should make sure that mineral activities are helping people build safer livelihoods, stronger enterprises and productive capabilities, [where] communities are participating in the benefits, and women and young people are gaining a fair opportunity to progress.”

Touching on some of the concrete policy targets of the ASME Hub framework, she indicated that it would identify and barriers that would be difficult for individual operators to surmount.

These include uncertain tenure, limited geological information, constrained finance, technology gaps, and difficulty accessing formal markets.

Diop insisted that “formalisation is more credible when it offers a practical route to better economic prospects.”

She also called for the recognition that different operators have different starting points, and these solutions must be tailored to the varying needs of the miners.

The proposed ASME Frameworks has five objectives, which are: facilitating governance reform and policy harmonization; providing thematic analysis; supporting legitimacy and professionalization; developing partnerships; and making relevant knowledge more accessible.

Programme Manager at the Open Society Foundations, Denis Gyeyir, welcomed the idea of an ASM Hub, in an interview, saying it has huge potential for employing millions of people.

He also described the as one which is aimed at harnessing the full potential of the ASM sector to contribute to the national development, but also minimizing the negative effects of ASM extraction.

He stated that the issue of formalisation should not merely be seen as a way of licensing and getting revenue from ASM operators, but rather from a support perspective, where operators are organized, supported, licensed, monitored, regulated, with the goal of sharing benefits across the national development agenda.

He said, the development of the hub should be “a support-driven enterprise that ensures that these ASM operators receive the support they require to operate efficiently, to operate safely, and then thereby that will be addressing some of the negative impacts, but then also harness its potential because it has a huge potential, not just in Ghana, but in places like DRC, in places like Mozambique, in places like Zimbabwe, which are also our focus countries, by the way.”

Gyeyir also called on African nations to emulate the South African example in decriminalising the ASM sector, stating, “Government should create the safe space.

First of all, it has to start with a legal framework that accepts ASM.

In countries like Ghana, ASM is recognized in law, but there are other countries where ASM is still not very recognized, and in some cases is misconstrued as illegal mining, but the two are not the same.

So we need to be able to unlink ASM from illegal unregulated mining. ASM is a recognized pathway to producing minerals in a safe manner without, you know, offending the environment and offending the communities. And that is how it should be seen,” he said.

He concluded by calling for more countries to develop support mechanisms for the ASM sector to operate efficiently.

The Artisanal Small Scale Mining Lead at the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa in Ethiopia underscored the importance of the hub, saying, it will “address some of the challenges that exist in the sector .”

He was optimistic that this would go a long way towards optimizing the value, value creation, and retention within African sector.

He also addressed concerns that operators in the sector are averse to formalisation, noting that with the right incentives and structures in place, miners are are open to formalizing their operations.

He pointed to the local benefits of the artisanal mining sector on communities where they operate by creating secondary jobs for the indigenes, unlike in the case of the larger multinationals, who tend to operate at arm’s length from the local communities, these ASMs interact with community members and help create indirect benefits for them.