United Kingdom (UK)-based social enterprise PeaceGold plans to make its \u200cfirst exports from restive eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) by September, its founder told Reuters, despite fighting last year that disrupted artisanal gold mining across the region.<\/p>\n
PeaceGold was set up \u200bin 2013 with the local nonprofit Conflict Resolution Center to help \u200bformalise artisanal mining and reintegrate former combatants into regulated work, including \u2060gold mining, as a way to reduce conflict.<\/p>\n
It was initially supported by \u200bWestern donors before shifting toward a commercial model.<\/p>\n
The project is currently working with \u200baround 11 artisanal mining co-operatives in Ituri Province, representing nearly 25 000 miners and support workers, and is positioning itself as an alternative to Congo’s largely illicit artisanal gold trade, said PeaceGold \u200bfounder Greg Valerio.<\/p>\n
More than half of DRC\u2019s gold is believed to be \u200bsmuggled out each year,\u00a0Reuters analyses show.
\nRwanda\u2011backed M23 and other armed militias last year seized more territory in \u200can \u2060offensive that killed thousands of people in eastern DRC, the United Nations said.<\/p>\n
The M23-linked rebellion forced some co-operatives to temporarily halt operations, although they were not directly overrun by fighting, Valerio said.<\/p>\n
While PeaceGold’s model has strong support among mining co-operatives, being \u200ba nonprofit means \u200bit cannot trade \u2060the gold, Valerio said.<\/p>\n
It is finalising regulatory approvals and operational systems ahead of its commercial launch, including securing working\u2011capital financing \u200bfrom a yet-to-be-named UK\u2011based financial partner to fund gold purchases \u200bat mine \u2060sites, he said.<\/p>\n
Initial exports will be slow, peaking at around 50 kilograms a month by year three, Valerio said, with PeaceGold aiming to retain about 80% of \u2060gold \u200bvalue inside DRC for the cooperatives, local infrastructure \u200band compliance systems.<\/p>\n
“DRC doesn’t have a gold problem, it has a systems problem [and] we are trying to \u200bfix that.”<\/p>\n
–Reuters–<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":20438,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"news-type":[44],"class_list":["post-32530","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-finance","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"The project is currently working with \u200baround 11 artisanal mining co-operatives in Ituri Province.","published_date":"","news_description":"The project is currently working with \u200baround 11 artisanal mining co-operatives in Ituri Province.","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/32530","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/32530\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32531,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/32530\/revisions\/32531"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20438"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32530"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=32530"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}