The Definitive Guide to Artisanal Mining in the DRC — Cobalt, Copper, and the Human Cost

Introduction

Artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) in the Democratic Republic of Congo is one of the most consequential and misunderstood phenomena in the global minerals economy. It is simultaneously a lifeline for millions of the world's poorest people, a source of critical raw materials for the energy transition, a site of severe human rights abuses including child labour, and a testing ground for global supply chain governance. Any serious engagement with the Lobito Corridor, with cobalt supply chains, or with responsible mining investment in Central Africa requires a thorough understanding of artisanal mining in the DRC.

This guide provides that understanding. It covers the scale and economics of ASM, the mechanics of how artisanal mining actually works on the ground, the child labour crisis, the role of the Entreprise Generale du Cobalt (EGC), the cooperative and buying house system, the DRC's regulatory framework, international traceability initiatives, and the intersection of ASM with the Lobito Corridor. It draws on field research, government data, industry disclosures, and the reporting of investigative journalists and human rights organisations.

The DRC produces approximately 75% of the world's cobalt, and artisanal miners account for an estimated 15-30% of that output depending on the year and the price cycle. The mineral passes through a complex chain of intermediaries before reaching the cathode plants and battery factories of China, South Korea, Japan, and increasingly Europe and North America. Understanding that chain is essential for investors, policymakers, manufacturers, and anyone concerned with the ethics of the energy transition.

What Is Artisanal Mining?

Artisanal mining, in the DRC context, refers to mineral extraction conducted by individuals or small groups using hand tools, manual labour, and minimal mechanisation. The Congolese Mining Code of 2018 defines artisanal mining as extraction that does not use industrial equipment or processes, conducted within designated Artisanal Mining Zones (ZEAs, Zones d'Exploitation Artisanale). The distinction between artisanal mining and industrial mining is both legal and practical: industrial mining operates under exploitation permits (permis d'exploitation), uses heavy machinery, and is conducted by registered companies, while artisanal mining is theoretically confined to ZEAs and conducted by individual card-holding miners known as creuseurs.

In practice, the boundaries are far less clear. Artisanal miners routinely operate on industrial concessions without authorization, a practice the industry calls "illegal mining" or "artisanal incursion." Industrial concession holders face constant pressure from communities of artisanal miners seeking access to ore bodies. Some companies have attempted coexistence arrangements; others have employed private security or state forces to expel miners, frequently with violent consequences documented by organisations such as Amnesty International and the Centre Carter. The relationship between industrial and artisanal mining in the DRC is one of structural tension, mutual dependence, and recurring conflict.

Small-Scale Mining Distinguished

Small-scale mining (SSM) occupies an intermediate category between artisanal and industrial mining. The DRC Mining Code provides for small-scale mining permits that allow limited mechanisation within defined areas. In practice, the small-scale category is underdeveloped in the DRC compared to other African jurisdictions, and most non-industrial mining is classified as artisanal regardless of actual scale. Some operations that describe themselves as artisanal in fact employ hundreds of workers, use rudimentary mechanisation such as water pumps and generators, and produce significant volumes of ore. The gap between legal categories and operational reality is a persistent feature of the DRC mining landscape.

Scale & Economic Significance

The numbers associated with artisanal mining in the DRC are imprecise but staggering. An estimated 150,000 to 250,000 people work directly as artisanal cobalt miners in the provinces of Lualaba and Haut-Katanga. When dependents, transporters, traders, processors, and service providers are included, artisanal cobalt mining supports an estimated 1 to 2 million livelihoods. The broader ASM sector across all minerals in the DRC, including gold, diamonds, tin, tantalum, and tungsten, may involve 2 million miners directly and support 10-12 million people indirectly, making it one of the country's largest employers after subsistence agriculture.

Economic Contribution

Artisanal mining's economic contribution is difficult to quantify precisely because much of the activity occurs informally. Estimates suggest that ASM contributes between $1 billion and $3 billion annually to the Congolese economy when the full value chain from extraction to first export is considered. For communities in the Copperbelt, ASM is often the primary cash economy. In Kolwezi, Likasi, and Fungurume, artisanal mining shapes urban geography, migration patterns, labour markets, and political dynamics. The sector's informality means that much of this economic activity escapes taxation, depriving the Congolese state of significant revenue.

The relationship between ASM output and commodity prices is highly elastic. When cobalt prices are high, artisanal production surges as more people enter the sector and existing miners work more intensively. When prices collapse, as they did in 2023-2024, many marginal sites become uneconomic and miners either switch to copper extraction (which has more stable pricing) or leave the sector entirely. This price sensitivity makes ASM a flexible but volatile component of global cobalt supply.

How ASM Works on the Ground

The Mining Sites

Artisanal cobalt mining in the DRC occurs at hundreds of sites scattered across southern Lualaba and Haut-Katanga provinces. The most significant concentrations are around Kolwezi, where heterogenite (the primary cobalt-bearing mineral in artisanal mining) is found in surface and near-surface deposits. Major ASM sites include Kasulo (a neighbourhood of Kolwezi where people literally mine beneath their homes), Musompo, Kapata, and the perimeters of industrial concessions operated by companies like Glencore and CMOC at Kamoto and Tenke-Fungurume.

Working conditions at ASM sites range from dangerous to lethal. Miners dig tunnels and shafts up to 30 metres deep without engineering support, ventilation, or safety equipment. Tunnel collapses are the leading cause of death. Miners work in standing water contaminated with heavy metals. Dust inhalation causes chronic respiratory disease. There is no systematic injury or fatality recording, but researchers and journalists have documented dozens of deaths at individual sites during concentrated periods. The International Peace Information Service (IPIS) has mapped hundreds of ASM sites and documented conditions at many of them.

The Daily Routine

A typical artisanal cobalt miner (creuseur) arrives at the mining site before dawn. Work begins with digging, either at open surface deposits where heterogenite is visible in the soil, or in underground tunnels that follow ore veins. The miner extracts ore-bearing rock and soil, carries it to the surface in sacks weighing 20-50 kilograms, and then washes and sorts the material to concentrate the cobalt-bearing ore. The concentrated ore is placed in polypropylene sacks and carried or transported by bicycle or motorcycle to a nearby buying point (depot).

At the buying point, a negociant (buyer) weighs the ore, assesses its grade visually or with basic testing, and offers a price. The miner has limited bargaining power; the negociant typically sets the price. Payment is in cash, usually Congolese francs or US dollars. The miner may earn between $2 and $10 per day depending on the quality of ore found, the prevailing cobalt price, and the specific buying point's pricing. Some miners work in teams and split proceeds; others work independently. Many are indebted to negociants who have advanced them tools, food, or cash.

The Middlemen Chain

From the buying point, artisanal cobalt enters a chain of aggregation and trading. Negociants sell to larger traders or directly to depots operated by buying houses (comptoirs or maisons d'achat). The buying houses aggregate ore from multiple sources, conduct further processing (washing, grading, and sometimes rudimentary refining), and sell to industrial buyers or exporters. The largest buying houses historically included companies like Congo Dongfang Mining (CDM, a subsidiary of Huayou Cobalt), Chemaf (part of the Shalina Group), and Trafigura-linked entities. Since the establishment of the EGC, the state has attempted to monopolise the first point of purchase of artisanal cobalt.

Each link in the chain extracts a margin. By the time artisanal cobalt reaches an export processing facility, the creuseur who dug it from the ground has typically received 20-40% of the ore's value at that point. The rest is distributed among negociants, transporters, buying house operators, site managers (who charge access fees), cooperative officials, and various government and security agents who extract formal taxes and informal payments at checkpoints along the route. This extraction chain is a major reason why artisanal miners remain poor despite producing a globally valuable commodity.

The Child Labour Crisis

The use of child labour in the DRC's artisanal cobalt mines is the single most damaging reputational issue facing the global battery supply chain. Investigative reporting by Amnesty International, the Washington Post, Sky News, and others has documented children as young as six years old working at cobalt mining sites, carrying heavy loads, washing ore, and in some cases descending into tunnels. UNICEF has estimated that approximately 25,000 to 40,000 children work in artisanal mines across southern DRC, though precise numbers are impossible to verify. For our detailed analysis of child labour in the corridor region, see Child Labour and Cobalt in the Corridor.

Nature of Child Involvement

Children's involvement in ASM takes several forms. The most visible involves children working directly at mining sites: sorting ore, washing mineral-bearing soil, carrying sacks, and providing water and food to adult miners. Some children work alongside family members as part of household economic strategies; others work independently or are employed by adult miners. A second category involves children working in the transport and trading chain, carrying ore on foot or by bicycle between mining sites and buying points. A third category involves children who are not mining but are present at mining sites because their parents work there and have no alternative childcare, exposing them to hazards including dust inhalation and contaminated water.

The drivers of child labour in cobalt mining are primarily economic. Extreme poverty in mining communities, combined with the failure of the Congolese education system (schools are not free and families must pay fees), creates powerful incentives for families to send children to work rather than school. A child working at a mining site might earn $1-3 per day, which represents a significant contribution to household income in communities where adults earn $2-10 per day. Orphanhood, displacement, and the breakdown of family structures due to conflict also contribute. Children from families headed by women are disproportionately represented in ASM child labour.

Industry Response

The exposure of child labour in cobalt supply chains prompted a significant industry response. Major battery manufacturers, automotive companies, and technology firms have implemented cobalt sourcing policies that nominally prohibit the use of artisanal cobalt or require due diligence on artisanal sources. Apple, Samsung SDI, LG Energy Solution, Tesla, BMW, and others have published responsible sourcing commitments. The Responsible Minerals Initiative (RMI), an industry body, developed the Responsible Minerals Assurance Process (RMAP) for cobalt refiners. The OECD Due Diligence Guidance for Responsible Supply Chains provides the normative framework.

However, the effectiveness of these measures is contested. Some critics argue that industry due diligence requirements have primarily functioned to push artisanal cobalt out of formal supply chains rather than to improve conditions for artisanal miners. When brands refuse to purchase artisanal cobalt, the ore does not disappear; it enters less scrutinised supply chains, typically those flowing through Chinese intermediaries to Chinese refiners. The paradox of responsible sourcing in the DRC is that it can improve traceability in the supply chains that adopt it while simultaneously driving problematic material into the supply chains that do not.

EGC & the Formalization Agenda

The Entreprise Generale du Cobalt (EGC) is the DRC government's most ambitious attempt to formalize and control the artisanal cobalt sector. Established by presidential decree in 2019 and operationalized in 2020, EGC was granted a monopoly on the purchase, processing, and sale of all artisanally mined cobalt in the DRC. The stated objectives were to eliminate child labour from artisanal supply chains, ensure fair prices for artisanal miners, capture more value for the Congolese state, and create a traceable, responsible supply chain for artisanal cobalt.

Structure and Operations

EGC is structured as a subsidiary of Gecamines, the DRC state mining company. It operates through a partnership with Trafigura, the commodity trading house, which provides offtake, financing, and supply chain management. Under the arrangement, EGC purchases artisanal cobalt from cooperatives and buying points, processes the material at designated facilities, and sells it to Trafigura for international marketing. Trafigura's involvement was intended to provide commercial credibility and access to responsible buyers in Western markets who would pay a premium for traceable, child-labour-free artisanal cobalt.

EGC established a pilot site at the Kasulo artisanal mining area in Kolwezi, one of the most significant and well-documented ASM sites. At Kasulo, EGC implemented access controls, miner registration, age verification (to exclude children), safety improvements, and a digital traceability system. The pilot demonstrated that formalization was technically feasible: registered miners sold their ore to EGC at published prices, the ore was traceable from mine to market, and independent monitors verified that children were not working at the controlled site.

Challenges and Criticism

Despite the pilot's technical success, EGC has faced fundamental challenges in scaling its operations. The monopoly model has been criticized from multiple directions. Artisanal miners and cooperatives have complained that EGC's prices are lower than those offered by competing (often Chinese) buyers, creating an incentive to sell outside the EGC system. The monopoly has been difficult to enforce across the vast, dispersed, and remote ASM landscape of southern DRC. Governance concerns have been raised about Gecamines' management of EGC revenues and the transparency of the Trafigura offtake arrangement.

International human rights organisations, including Global Witness, have questioned whether a state monopoly is the appropriate mechanism for formalization, noting the DRC government's own complicity in extractive rent-seeking. Some researchers argue that EGC has functioned primarily as a rent-extraction mechanism for political elites rather than as a genuine formalization tool. The collapse in cobalt prices in 2023-2024 undermined EGC's commercial viability and reduced both the volume of artisanal cobalt being mined and the margins available to support formalization infrastructure.

Impact Assessment

As of 2025, EGC has achieved partial formalization at a small number of sites but has not succeeded in establishing a comprehensive monopoly over artisanal cobalt. The majority of artisanal cobalt continues to flow through informal channels, particularly to Chinese-linked buying houses that export directly or feed into Chinese-owned processing facilities in the DRC. The EGC experiment has demonstrated both the potential and the limitations of state-led formalization in a context of weak governance, vast informal economies, and powerful competing commercial interests.

Cooperatives & Buying Houses

The Cooperative System

Under the DRC Mining Code, artisanal miners are required to organise into cooperatives to operate legally. Cooperatives apply for authorisation to mine within designated ZEAs and are responsible for registering their members, collecting production data, and ensuring compliance with mining regulations. In theory, the cooperative system provides a governance structure for artisanal mining, a collective bargaining mechanism for miners, and a point of entry for formalization and traceability initiatives.

In practice, many cooperatives function as gatekeeping organisations that extract fees from miners rather than representing their interests. Cooperative leaders are frequently aligned with local political and military figures, and membership fees, production levies, and access charges can consume a significant share of miners' earnings. Research by the International Peace Information Service and others has documented widespread corruption within the cooperative system, including phantom cooperatives that exist on paper but do not represent real miners, and cooperatives controlled by individuals who are themselves industrial mining concession holders.

There are, however, cooperatives that function effectively. Some have successfully negotiated access agreements with industrial concession holders, secured better prices for their members, implemented basic safety measures, and served as entry points for development programmes. The distinction between functional and exploitative cooperatives is crucial for any intervention aimed at improving ASM governance.

Buying Houses (Comptoirs)

Buying houses, known locally as comptoirs or maisons d'achat, are the commercial enterprises that purchase, aggregate, and process artisanal minerals for sale to processors and exporters. They operate under trading licences issued by the DRC mining authorities. The buying house sector in the DRC cobalt trade is dominated by Chinese-owned enterprises, reflecting the broader dominance of Chinese capital in the DRC's mining sector. Congo Dongfang Mining (CDM), a subsidiary of Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt, was historically the largest buyer of artisanal cobalt before restructuring its operations in response to child labour exposures. Other significant buying houses include entities linked to Sinomine, CNGR Advanced Material, and various smaller Chinese trading companies.

The buying house system has been the primary target of supply chain due diligence efforts because it represents the critical junction where artisanal cobalt is aggregated, processed, and enters the formal commercial system. Traceability is most feasible at the buying house level, where ore can be tested, weighed, recorded, and assigned batch numbers. However, the multiplicity of buying houses, the prevalence of side-selling and stock mixing, and the limited capacity of DRC authorities to monitor the sector mean that traceability remains incomplete.

DRC Regulatory Framework

The legal framework governing artisanal mining in the DRC is extensive on paper but poorly enforced in practice. The principal instruments are the Mining Code of 2018 (as amended), the Mining Regulations, and various ministerial decrees and provincial orders. Understanding this framework is essential for anyone engaging with ASM formalization or investing in the DRC mining sector.

Key Legal Provisions

Enforcement Challenges

The gap between the DRC's mining laws and their implementation is vast. The SAEMAPE (Service d'Assistance et d'Encadrement du Small-Scale Mining et de l'Exploitation Artisanale), the government agency responsible for overseeing artisanal mining, is chronically underfunded, understaffed, and present at only a fraction of ASM sites. Provincial mining authorities similarly lack the resources for effective oversight. Corruption is pervasive: government officials, military officers, and police routinely extract informal payments from artisanal miners and buying houses, creating a parallel taxation system that further impoverishes miners while generating no public revenue.

The designation of ZEAs is a particularly contentious issue. The Mining Code requires that artisanal mining occur only in designated zones, but the process for designating ZEAs has been slow, politically contested, and frequently overridden by competing interests. Many of the richest ASM sites are located on industrial concessions, where artisanal miners have no legal right to operate. The government's reluctance to designate adequate ZEAs reflects the tension between supporting ASM livelihoods and protecting the rights of industrial concession holders who generate more tax revenue and formal employment.

International Supply Chains & Traceability

Artisanal cobalt from the DRC enters global supply chains through a well-documented but difficult-to-control pathway. Understanding this pathway is essential for compliance professionals, investors, and policymakers working on conflict minerals and responsible sourcing.

The Supply Chain Pathway

The typical journey of artisanal cobalt follows these stages: extraction by creuseurs at ASM sites; sale to negociants at on-site or nearby buying points; aggregation at buying houses in Kolwezi, Likasi, or Lubumbashi; processing into cobalt hydroxide or concentrate at DRC-based processing facilities; export by road through Kasumbalesa to Zambia and then by rail or road to ports in Dar es Salaam, Durban, or (increasingly) Lobito; and finally shipping to refineries predominantly in China, Finland, or Belgium. At each stage, the material may be mixed with industrially mined cobalt, making it progressively harder to trace to its artisanal origin.

Traceability Systems

Multiple traceability systems have been deployed to track artisanal cobalt through this chain. The digital traceability approaches piloted by companies like Circulor, RCS Global (now Lisam), and IBM have generated significant attention. These systems typically involve tagging bags of ore at the point of purchase with unique identifiers, recording transactions on a digital platform, and creating a chain-of-custody record that accompanies the material through processing and export. The OECD Due Diligence Guidance provides the normative standard that these systems aim to operationalise.

The effectiveness of digital traceability is constrained by on-the-ground realities. Side-selling, where miners sell ore outside the tracked system to get better prices, is endemic. Stock mixing at buying houses and processing facilities can contaminate tracked material with untracked material. The sheer volume of ASM production and the number of actors involved make comprehensive tracking extremely resource-intensive. Nevertheless, traceability has improved significantly since 2016, and the combination of digital tools, physical inspection, and risk-based auditing provides a meaningful, if imperfect, assurance framework.

China's Role

China's dominance in cobalt refining means that the vast majority of artisanal cobalt, regardless of the traceability measures applied at the DRC end, ultimately enters Chinese processing facilities. Chinese companies refine approximately 80% of the world's cobalt, and Chinese-owned entities are the primary purchasers of DRC artisanal cobalt. The Chinese versus Western investment patterns in the DRC's cobalt sector reflect fundamentally different approaches to ASM: Chinese companies have historically been more willing to purchase artisanal cobalt with fewer due diligence conditions, while Western companies have progressively tightened sourcing requirements. This divergence has driven artisanal cobalt disproportionately into Chinese supply chains.

ASM & the Lobito Corridor

The Lobito Corridor intersects with artisanal mining in several important ways. The corridor passes through or near major ASM areas in the DRC's Lualaba and Haut-Katanga provinces. Kolwezi, the epicentre of artisanal cobalt mining, is a key node on the corridor's DRC segment. The Dilolo-Kolwezi railway, which the corridor is rehabilitating, passes through areas where artisanal mining is widespread. The corridor's success depends in part on how it manages the interaction between large-scale infrastructure development and the ASM communities that populate the route.

Transport and Market Access

Improved transport infrastructure could benefit artisanal miners by reducing the cost of moving ore to processing facilities and export points. Currently, artisanal cobalt is transported primarily by road, with high transport costs that reduce miners' margins. The transport cost crisis affects artisanal miners particularly acutely because they operate at smaller volumes and have less bargaining power with transport providers. If the corridor successfully reduces transport costs, some of those savings could theoretically flow back to miners. However, the concentration of market power in the hands of buying houses and processors means that transport savings are more likely to be captured by intermediaries than passed on to miners.

Displacement Risks

Infrastructure development along the corridor poses displacement risks for ASM communities. Railway rehabilitation, the Kolwezi rail bypass, and associated road and facility construction may require the relocation of artisanal mining communities that have established themselves along or near the railway right-of-way. The displacement and resettlement standards applied to corridor projects will determine whether affected ASM communities receive adequate compensation and alternative livelihood support. For broader context on displacement, see our reporting on the displacement question.

ESG Implications for Corridor Investors

For investors in the Lobito Corridor and associated mining investments, artisanal mining presents both ESG risks and potential opportunities. The presence of ASM along the corridor raises reputational, legal, and operational risks for companies associated with the project. The ESG requirements applied by the US DFC, the World Bank/IFC, and European development finance institutions include specific provisions on artisanal mining, child labour, and community engagement. Companies seeking corridor-linked investment must demonstrate that their operations do not contribute to or benefit from exploitative ASM practices.

Reform Pathways & Future Outlook

The future of artisanal mining in the DRC will be shaped by several competing forces: the global demand for cobalt and copper driven by the energy transition; the DRC government's formalization agenda; international pressure on supply chain responsibility; and the agency and resilience of the millions of Congolese who depend on ASM for their livelihoods.

Formalization Models

Several models for ASM formalization are being tested in the DRC. The EGC monopoly model represents a top-down, state-led approach. The Fair Cobalt Alliance model represents a multi-stakeholder approach that works with existing cooperatives and market structures to improve conditions incrementally. The GIZ-led Cobalt for Development programme has piloted responsible mining at specific sites with industry funding. Each model has strengths and limitations, and none has yet demonstrated the ability to operate at the scale necessary to transform the sector as a whole.

Technology and Mechanisation

Controlled mechanisation of artisanal mining, sometimes called "intermediate mining" or "responsible small-scale mining," offers a potential pathway between the current manual extraction model and full industrial mining. By providing artisanal cooperatives with basic equipment such as excavators, crushers, and washing plants, under appropriate safety and environmental controls, intermediate mining could significantly increase productivity, improve safety, and reduce the economic pressure that drives child labour. Several pilot projects have demonstrated the concept, but scaling requires capital, governance structures, and regulatory frameworks that are currently lacking.

Demand Outlook

The long-term demand outlook for cobalt is uncertain, with implications for ASM. On one hand, the EV battery supply chain is expected to require dramatically more cobalt over the next decade. On the other hand, battery chemistries are shifting toward cobalt-light (NMC 811) and cobalt-free (LFP) formulations, potentially constraining cobalt demand growth. If cobalt demand grows strongly, ASM will remain an economically attractive activity and formalization will be both more urgent and more commercially viable. If cobalt demand stagnates or declines, ASM communities will face deepening poverty and the economic incentive structure that sustains formalization efforts will weaken.

The Bigger Picture

Artisanal mining in the DRC cannot be understood or reformed in isolation from the country's broader governance challenges. The same institutional weaknesses that prevent effective ASM regulation, including corruption, weak rule of law, inadequate public services, and the persistence of conflict in eastern DRC, also constrain every other aspect of the country's development. The most effective interventions may be those that address the root causes of ASM's worst abuses, such as poverty-driven child labour, by investing in education, healthcare, and alternative livelihoods in mining communities, rather than focusing exclusively on supply chain controls that address symptoms rather than causes.

Key Data & Reference Tables

Artisanal mining in the DRC will remain a central challenge and opportunity for the Lobito Corridor, for the global battery supply chain, and for the millions of Congolese who depend on it. The guide above provides a foundation for understanding this complex sector. For ongoing coverage, see our artisanal mining analysis, cobalt ASM data page, and child labour reporting.