Corridor Context
ASM is a defining feature of the DRC's cobalt sector, providing livelihoods for an estimated 200,000+ workers in the copper-cobalt belt. Artisanal miners — known locally as creuseurs — work in often dangerous conditions, sometimes alongside industrial operations run by companies like Glencore and CMOC. The EGC was established to formalise artisanal cobalt purchasing, and the corridor's first artisanal cobalt shipment marked a milestone in supply chain formalisation.
ASM regulation is governed by the DRC Artisanal Mining Regulations and subject to international due diligence under the OECD Guidance and EU CSDDD.
Scale and Significance
In the DRC alone, an estimated two million artisanal miners and up to ten million dependents rely on ASM for their livelihoods. The sector produces a significant share of the DRC's cobalt output — estimates range from 15% to 30% of national production. ASM also produces copper, gold, tin, tantalum, and tungsten, making it one of the most significant economic activities in corridor-affected communities.
Corridor Implications
The corridor's development intersects with ASM in multiple ways. Infrastructure construction may displace mining sites. Formalisation through EGC restructures purchasing channels. Transport infrastructure changes logistics costs for ASM output. Whether these changes improve or worsen ASM livelihoods depends on policies and implementation that our monitoring tracks. Child labour, safety conditions, and environmental practices in ASM remain priority concerns for our human rights monitoring.
Monitoring and Accountability
Our monitoring programme tracks how this concept is implemented in practice across the corridor, assessing whether stated policies, legal requirements, and institutional commitments translate into community-level outcomes. Field monitoring, stakeholder consultation, and document analysis provide the evidence base for our assessment. All documentation is preserved on our source evidence archive, creating permanent, verifiable records that support accountability when implementation falls short of commitment.
Understanding this concept and its practical implications is essential for corridor stakeholders — investors evaluating risk, communities asserting rights, regulators designing frameworks, and civil society advocating for improved outcomes. Our intelligence products, including quarterly ESG Scorecards, investigation reports, and analytical briefings, examine how this concept functions in the corridor context, providing the actionable intelligence that enables informed decision-making across all stakeholder groups.
Further Resources
Our analysis, intelligence products, and monitoring reports provide extensive examination of how this concept applies to corridor operations. Weekly intelligence briefs track developments, monthly situation reports provide country-level analysis, and thematic deep dives examine specific dimensions in detail. All publications are available through our website at lobitocorridor.com and preserved on distributed storage for permanent accessibility.