Ghana: Poverty and Social Impact Analysis of the Artisanal and Small Scale Mining Sector

1. Ghana: Poverty and Social Impact Analysisof the Artisanal and Small Scale Mining Sector Kristina Svensson World Bank Sustainable Energy Division - Oil, Gas, and Mining Department PSIA Learning Days, March 14, 2013

2. Why artisanal and small scale mining? • Large-scale mining company influx during 1990-2000s; • 500,000 to 1 million miners, majority illegal on large scale concessions; • Today small-scale mining is 28% of total Ghana gold production; • Negative social and environmental impacts, land conflicts; • Increasingly mechanized and with foreign investments (Chinese).

3. PSIA Objectives • Inform Government of Ghana (GoG) policies and practices related to ASM by producing new data on the sector, and new analysis; • Inform the preparation of the next phase of Bank support for NREG, specially with regards to mining sector activities; • To facilitate the creation of a platform for dialogue and consultations among a range of ASMstakeholders To assess the poverty, welfare, and social impact of the Small-Scale Gold Mining Law (1989) ex-post, and do an ex-ante assessment of the revised Draft Mining Policy

4. Methodology • Limited primary data: Desk- and field study (Japa in WassaAmenfi East District) • Limited use of “counter-factual” • Lack of comparable countries • Problem with national data • Participatory space and dialogue • Political economy • Transmission channels for tracing impact of policy reforms: • Employment • Prices • Access • Assets • Transfers • Taxes and authority

5. Key PSIA findings • Artisanal and small scale mining today in Ghana can be a wealth creating sector - not necessarily “poverty driven” or “get-rich-quick” phenomena; • Current licensing and access to land regimes are not working for majority of artisanal and small-scale miners, and leads to illegality, conflicts, and human rights abuses; • There are important regional differences within Ghana in terms of how well existing ASM policies work.

6. Livelihood matrix for typical small-scale gold “pit” (Japa, 2012)

7. Distribution of wealth in small-scale mining community of Japa

8. Licensing and Access to Land

9. Regional mining frontiers

10. Proposed policy approaches

11. What worked? • Despite initial weak government participation, the PSIA helped to open up policy space; • “Social inclusion” on agenda, but more focus on sector reforms; • Strong engagement with other stakeholders (miners, NGOs, large scale companies); • Part of series of programs and activities – would not have worked as a one-off activity.

12. Lessons learned • Difficult policy environment – strong political preference to focus on continuing to attract and retain large scale mining; • More primary data needed to show economic impact of ASM in communities; • Stakeholder engagement useful, but more needed with NGOs and communities and chiefs/stools needed; • Political economy analysis useful in showing political power of ASM.

13. Thanks for your attention!