Some communities around Chitimbe Hills in Balaka have been mining gold since the 1940s, but they have nothing much to show for it.
Most of them live in leaky grass-thatched huts and experience perennial hunger.
“We haven’t fully benefited from the glittering mineral due to low prices dictated by illegal buyers who sentenced us to hard labour,” says gold digger Dyson Sungamoyo.
He uses the meagre earnings from alluvial gold deposits to buy food as crop fields in his drought-stricken barren field keep dwindling.
Every day, artisanal small-scale miners like Sungamoyo carry 10 bags of sand on a 505-metre downslope to pan deposits of the precious metal in Chisimbwiti River in Traditional Authority Phalula’s territory.
Illegal mining of alluvial gold has left the landscape severely degraded, with rivers buried in silt as people drowned in poverty.
In 2020, the Centre for Environmental Policy and Advocacy (Cepa), with funding from IM Swedish Development Partner, rolled out a project to enhance artisanal miners’ livelihoods while tackling environmental challenges and gender inequalities.
Cepa executive director Hebert Mwalukomo envisaged the community embarking on sustainable and profitable mining, processing and marketing.
“We intervened to support economic growth and poverty reduction while offsetting environmental impacts. There was a need to formalise the ASM to benefit from their efforts,” he says.
The government adopted the Artisanal Small-Scale Mining Policy in 2018 to facilitate its growth.
However, artisanal miners still get a raw deal due to a lack of improved technologies and geological information, poor environmental management and opportunistic buyers.
The visibly thankless donkeywork is unmistakable in Namizimu Forest Reserve in Mangochi, Namadzi River in Zomba and Dzundi in Lilongwe.
Recently, the African Minerals Development Centre (AMDC) gathered policymakers and industry players in Tanzania for consultations on the continent’s ASM strategy.
The African Union (AU) centre convened the talks to help African countries formalise and modernise artisanal mining to eliminate child labour and conserve the environment.
It envisions countries such as Malawi to reap maximum socioeconomic benefits from the mining sector.
AMDC programmes manager Mkhululi Ncube said: “Nearly 90 percent of people in the mining industry are artisanal miners, but mining laws and regulations mainly focus on large-scale mining.
“The consultative forum offered a comprehensive framework for sustainable development, enhanced economic stability for small-scale miners and provided governments with reliable frameworks for resource management.”
From Mzimba District, Perekezi ASM Consultants managing partner Chikomeni Manda says the strategy is critical to the sector and “should directly benefit communities” that bear the harmful impacts of increasing activity in mining sites.
AU Commission’s industry, minerals, entrepreneurship and tourism acting director Chiza Chiumya says artisanal mining needs continuous improvements to sustainably promote livelihoods.
“Unregulated markets, environmental degradation, health and safety risks and other challenges have overwhelmed the sector, which creates informalised alternative livelihood options and employment in precarious conditions, particularly for women and the youth.
Chiumya said the harmonised strategy will help tackle the prevailing challenges and integrate sustainable and equitable options into Africa’s economic development.
AMDC implements the African Mining Vision, which the countries endorsed in 2009.
It touts minerals as crucial for economic transformation, industrialisation and sustainable growth on the continent.
Chiumya asked African nations, including Malawi, to ratify the AMDC statutes to benefit from AU interventions and strategic global markets fully.
The call comes amid growing demand for cobalt, lithium, rare earth and other minerals used in electric vehicles, batteries and other green technologies.
Chiumya states: “AMDC will ensure countries establish a unified bargaining position on the international stage.
“The ratification signals to investors a commitment to stability and regulatory clarity.”
Ministry of Mining spokesperson Tibonge Kampondeni said Malawi is conducting internal consultations to establish the benefits of joining the continental mining initiative.
She said: “There is no timeframe to ratify them, but the ministry is committed to formalising the ASM sector.
“We have formalised 17 of the 32 groups identified. Last year, we registered four cooperatives from these groups.”
