Artisanal and small-scale mining

We fully support well-coordinated strategies to regulate and manage ASM where it exists and where it is still being developed. We believe the way forward should be crafted around a coexistence framework, recognising different country-by-country dynamics and regulatory provisions.

Guided by the ICMM and the Intergovernmental Forum on Mining, Minerals, Metals and Sustainable Development (IGF), AngloGold Ashanti believes that a sustainable ASM industry can be established by building capacity through local institutional partnerships, encouraging miners to form cooperatives and associations, getting larger mining companies to support capacity building and by improving miners’ access to more efficient and cleaner technologies.

We are guided by the following overarching principles in our approach:

• Contribute towards the formalisation and regulation of legal ASM and include it into the broad streams of social and economic activities
• Contribute to the development of policy frameworks and practices which lead to a viable and sustainable legal ASM sector
• Consider geological research to identify mineral zones and deposits that can be designated as suitable for legal ASM
• Develop programmes for the promotion and transfer of appropriate knowledge, skills and technologies to the legal ASM sector
• Develop methods for identifying potentially viable legal ASM operations for targeted support
• Develop programmes for promoting downstream value addition in legal ASM
• Promote inclusive growth and economic activities
• Contribute to the development and strengthening of legal ASM associations to provide an interface for engaging with the sector

For further information, refer to the Sustainability Report 2023: Addressing ASM

Policies and standards

• Management Standard: Artisanal and Small Scale Mining English, pdf