Baseline Study: Pathways to Prosperity Gold Project
Most artisanal gold miners in the P2P sites earn less than USD 50 a week, and few have health and safety training. Mercury is used almost everywhere. Women are concentrated in lower-paid processing tasks.
Overview
SPDC carried out this baseline for Solidaridad's P2P Gold project, funded by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in April-May 2023. It covered artisanal and small-scale gold mining (ASGM) in Narok, Migori, Kakamega and Turkana counties in Kenya, and in Geita Town Council, Geita District Council and Bukombe in Tanzania. It set baseline values for working hours and wages, health and safety, management systems, and production efficiency and safety. It also carried out stakeholder, gender and problem analyses and proposed an indicator framework. Results are broken down by country and by sex.
Key findings
- 63.8% of miners earned less than USD 50 a week (female 68.4%, male 59.9%). In Kenya, 87.1% said men earned more than women, compared with 20.7% in Tanzania, where 77.8% said pay was the same for similar work.
- Employment differed by country: 80.3% of Tanzanian miners worked for another miner, while 64% of Kenyan miners were self-employed. 70.2% worked six days a week in Tanzania, compared with 57% in Kenya.
- 97.3% of miners in Kenya and 62.1% in Tanzania had received no training in mining health and safety. 79.4% reported no fire extinguishers on site, and 61% reported no fire or disaster assembly point.
- Mercury was used for amalgamation by 95% of miners in Tanzania and 72% in Kenya. 76.8% in Tanzania but only 9.1% in Kenya said mercury was stored in controlled, locked stores. Cyanide use was rising, especially in Kenya.
- Only 19.3% of miners had a written agreement (male 21.7%, female 16.4%), and 68.2% were not members of an ASMO (Kenya 38.7% members, Tanzania 25.3%). No miner reported having to pay fees or surrender identity documents to work.
- Diesel generators were the main energy source (Kenya 81.7%, Tanzania 56.1%), and green energy was not used at all. Most miners knew of no alternative energy (Kenya 72.3%, Tanzania 93.5%).
- Women were concentrated in crushing, grinding, panning and amalgamation, which are lower-paid and involve exposure to mercury, and were largely kept away from handling recovered gold. Women and youth had little say in decisions at household, mine site and market level.
In figures
97.3 % of miners
62.1 % of miners
Data table
| Item | % of miners |
|---|---|
| Kenya | 97.3 |
| Tanzania | 62.1 |
95 % of miners
72 % of miners
Data table
| Item | % of miners |
|---|---|
| Tanzania | 95 |
| Kenya | 72 |
Recommendations
- Strengthen miners' associations, groups and cooperatives to lead sustainable and inclusive production and market systems.
- Continue sensitising miners and communities on gender equality and harmful stereotypes, for example through community dialogues, and recognise efforts to make ASGM inclusive.
- Support investment in modern technology to improve production and processing efficiency and increase the participation of women and marginalised groups.
- Assess alternative livelihood options for miners (e.g. masonry skills for youth) to supplement low mining earnings.
- Lobby for alternatives to mercury, and train miners on the environmental effects and safe handling of cyanide.
- Train ASMOs and miners in green energy and support its adoption. Market actors should develop a model that rewards 'green gold'.
- Develop sustainable and inclusive route-to-market models for Kenya and Tanzania with market actors.
Methodology
Mixed-methods design: a survey of 384 miners at 14 mine sites (186 in Kenya: 101 male, 85 female; 198 in Tanzania: 106 male, 92 female), seven single-sex miner workshops reaching 70 miners, 20 KIIs (12 in Kenya, 8 in Tanzania) and a literature review. Survey data were analysed in SPSS and qualitative data in NVivo.
Limitations
- The study was completed in about a month across two countries and seven study areas.
- Mine sites were chosen with county and regional mining leaders rather than at random, so selection bias cannot be ruled out.