ARTISANAL AND SMALL-SCALE GOLD MINES IN BURKINA FASO ...

ARTISANAL AND SMALL-SCALE GOLD MINES IN BURKINA FASO:
TODAY AND TOMORROW
by Eric JAQUES *, Blaise ZIDA **, Mario BILLA *, Catherine GREFFIÉ * and Jean-François THOMASSIN *
* BRGM, REM, B.P. 6009, 45060 Orléans cedex 2 (France) Tel. (0033) (0)2 38 64 34 56 – E-mail: e.jaques@brgm.fr
** BUMIGEB, 01 B.P. 601 Ouagadougou 01 (Burkina Faso) Tel. (00226) 36 48 02/90 – E-mail: zida_blaise@yahoo.fr
Between 2001 and 2003, BRGM has carried out, in close collaboration with the BUMIGEB 1 , several
studies on artisanal and small-scale gold mining (ASM) in Burkina Faso. These studies fell within a BRGM
scientific programme of technical and socio-economic analysis and modelling of artisanal mining activities
in Africa. The work aimed at identifying the problems, expectations and specific needs of the various actors
at all levels of the ASM sector, and to a lesser extent, of connected economic sectors, as well as evaluating
the pressures of such activity on Man, the environment and existing resources, by trying to identify the
resulting conflicts of use between involved local communities.
In Burkina Faso, the project mobilized a multi-disciplinary field team for a period of four months. The
teams comprised geologists specializing in ASM, ore-deposits specialists, experts in ore beneficiation and
sociologists. In all, 60 artisanal gold mining sites were investigated, five reference sites were analysed,
1300 persons were interviewed (about 1000 hours of individual surveys), and 300,000 data were collected.
The classified and structured data were then entered into the “Artisanat Minier” database, which is probably
unique in terms of the richness of its contained information. This chapter is partly based on a previous
publication by Jaques et al. (2004).
ARTISANAL AND SMALL-SCALE MINING: A BLURRED BOUNDARY
The generic term “Artisanal and Small-scale Mining” (ASM) covers all mining operations at a subindustrial
scale. The maximum production capacity of such operations is commonly fixed at 150 to 200
tons of ore/day (and 500 to 1000 tpd for industrial rocks and minerals, or IRM). Until now, the United
Nations (UNCTAD, 1997) have provided the only available definition with figures: an “Artisanal or Smallscale
Mine” produces less than 50,000 tons/year (100,000 to 200,000 t/y for IRM), with less than €1 million
capital investment, an annual turnover of less than €1.5 million, fewer than 40 employees, and a mine life
of less than five years. The ASM sector thus covers a large spectrum of operations, from artisanal mines to
small ‘real’ mines. Each of these end-members has its own problems and distinct stakes in terms of
sustainable development, even if the boundary between them can be blurred. We will adopt the following
characteristics for distinction (Jaques, 2001):
• A “small mine” s.s. is an extractive enterprise of the SME type, administratively recognized, and
carrying out planned exploitation of a small but explored deposit, with a minimum of fixed installations
and mechanized equipment;
• An “artisanal mine” is a generally informal operation, exploiting an unknown resource in an unplanned
manner, using mostly manual methods and rudimentary tools (a “hunting-gathering” type approach).
The notion of artisanal mining is thus indirectly related to scale. In Burkina Faso, the production
capacity of a large artisanal mining operation, mobilizing 2,000 to 3,000 miners and labourers, seldom
exceeds 30 to 35 tpd of ore.
In West Africa, except for a few English-speaking countries with a well-established mining tradition
such as Ghana, small mines are very rare.
1 Bureau des Mines et de la Géologie du Burkina Faso
1

ALL GOLD PRODUCTION TODAY IS ARTISANAL
Industrial gold production in Burkina Faso ceased in 1999 with the closure of the Poura and Essakane
mines, in particular due to the collapse of the gold price. Meanwhile, gold production today is derived from
artisanal mining operations, but such production has seen a severe and continuous decline since 1998. The
CBMP 2 estimates that it regressed from about one ton in 1998 to less than 250 kg in 2002. This trend,
though probably partly due to the increasingly scarce resources available to the artisans, seems especially
the result of the new, more liberal, laws of the Mining Code promulgated in October 1997. These laws,
which opened mining to the private sector, have multiplied the number of persons involved in mining and
marketing, rendering such activities more opaque and strengthening informal channels.
Apart from a few historical gold districts in the southwestern Poura region and Lobi country (Fig.1),
artisanal gold mining is a relatively recent phenomenon in Burkina. It began in the 1980s in the Sahel area
of the country (Gangaol region), following several dramatic droughts. Today, over 220 artisanal gold
mining sites are known in the country, about a hundred of which are regularly active. Each year, between
five and 10 new sites are opened. Between 90,000 and 140,000 persons – 30-40% of whom are women –
are involved during the dry months of November to May, agricultural activities permitting. It is estimated
that artisanal gold mining improves the lot of at least 650,000 persons in Burkina Faso, or one in 20
inhabitants.
The Sahel provinces of the north and centre-north, in particular those of Yatenga, Oudalan, Soum and
Bam, for long the largest gold producers, today still house the majority of the country’s artisanal gold
miners. Most comprise the Mossi People, the national majority, largely adhering to Islam.
A HIGHLY MOBILE FRONTLINE OF ACTIVITY
The increasing rarity and depletion of known and accessible resources, the dearth of new discoveries, and
the freezing of the best areas by mining companies, have, since the late-1990s, led many artisanal gold
miners to progressively abandon the traditional gold-producing areas of the Sahel and to migrate to new,
“unexplored”, ground in the south. The pioneering front of artisanal gold mining has thus steadily shifted
by about 50 km per year to the southern provinces. This movement followed two main axes (Fig. 1), a
major one southwest and a minor one southeast directed. The artisanal gold miners gradually gained terrain
until the 2003 rush in the Banfora region in the southwestern Comoe Province bordering the Ivory Coast
and sedimentary cover rocks. Since then, no gold-bearing areas of Burkina Faso have been preserved from
artisanal gold mining, as artisanal miners have gradually “colonized” the entire country.
The shift of artisanal gold mining to the more humid regions of the south, in particular the cottongrowing
areas of the southwest, has created new problems, in particular, land-use and water-use conflicts
between the mining and agro-pastoral communities that suddenly have to share the same space.
This rapid evolution of phenomena requires a flexible approach: artisanal gold mining is a dynamic and
ultra-mobile activity, a proper understanding of which can only be obtained by regular and unflagging
observation.
A GREAT VARIETY OF RESOURCES
Birimian volcano-sedimentary rocks cover about 75,000 km² of Burkina Faso, or close to 27% of its
territory. As elsewhere in West Africa, these rocks host a large number of gold deposits and showings. In
Burkina, almost 250 gold occurrences have been inventoried in the Birimian belts. Most of these are, or
have been, exploited in an artisanal manner. Artisanal gold mining in Burkina Faso is marked by the great
diversity of the targets, which include disseminated gold, stockworks, veins, quartzitic or lateritic eluvium,
laterite, and alluvium. Each deposit type has its own range of grades, potential reserves, technical
constraints, and mining method that will condition the artisan’s interest.
2
Comptoir Burkinabé des Métaux Précieux (Burkinabe Precious Metals Office): State corporation for management and control of the artisanal
sector.
2

P : Poura
L : Pays Lobi
1 : Nagrigre
2 : Bouere
3 : Kyin
4 : Alga
5 : Karentenga
Fig.1 – Main stages in the migration of the artisanal gold mining frontline in Burkina Faso
Table 1 – The selected reference sites (April 2002 data)
Artisanal miners will seek, by preference, shear-zone type targets (disseminated or quartzitic stockwork
mineralization), which are fairly typical in the north of the country. Oxidized, rich (>50 g/t Au), and easy
to mine without explosives, in the Sahel, such ore locally can be worked underground without pumping to
depths of close to 100 m. However, though very attractive, few such targets have been discovered in recent
years. Artisanal miners thus increasingly turn to the massive veins that are much more typical of the new
gold districts in the south. But these structures generally are less rich (five to 30 g/t Au), minimally
oxidized, and thus difficult to mine without explosives. In addition, the southern areas are in the humid
zone, which creates more pressing pumping problems. Motor pumps are rapidly needed to lower a water
table that, even in the dry season, is at 10 to 15 m depth.
MINING IS FAR TOO SELECTIVE
Today, many artisanal gold mining sites of Burkina work underground quartz veins. However, because of
the major technical constraints mentioned above, this work requires substantial material and human inputs.
Minor mechanization gradually gains ground: motor pumps and cereal mills, as well as explosives, are
increasingly being used at new sites.
In spite of this partial mechanization, the inherent technical problems remain difficult to overcome. The
3

esult is a very incomplete mining of mineralized structures, which involves selecting the richest parts.
Because of insufficient pumping means, it is common to see high-grade (>50 g/t Au) ore from the
cementation zone remain in places below several metres of water. Another problem is that, because of a
lack of dynamite or sufficiently heavy mining tools, some well-mineralized parts of massive veins have to
be abandoned in favour of wall rock and fracture zones.
Generally speaking, in order to cover his relatively high operating costs and attain the precarious
financial equilibrium of his operation, the artisanal miner is constrained to process only the rich ore. For a
standard operation without pumping below 30 m, the cut-off grade is commonly 20 to 30 g/t Au. After
hand-sorting (‘cobbing’) the run-of-mine at the edge of the pit, the poorest ore is dumped as “waste” on the
tips, from where it may be recovered by the villagers (mostly women) or other miners who have just been
hired. Finally, our analyses have established that the recovery rates from processing are better than the 40%
estimated before in the literature, but still are only around 60 to 65%. An ore grading of 20 to 30 g/t Au
will, after three grinding and washing cycles, still produce tailings that grade eight to 12 g/t Au; in this
respect, the residual gold content was remarkably constant from one site to the next.
Where a massive gold-bearing vein is mined, only 20 to 40% of the potential reserves are recovered. In
short, because of their basic equipment, major technical constraints and high operating costs, the artisanal
miners of Burkina cannot prevent a “high-grading” of their resources. Figure 2 illustrates these problems.
Fig. 2 – Distribution of gold grades of a typical artisanal gold vein mine in Burkina Faso
A HIGHLY STRUCTURED AND JOB-CREATING ACTIVITY
Artisanal mines of Burkina Faso, commonly overpopulated, are striking in terms of their teeming and
abundant character. Some of these mines, such as Bouda (Passoré province) in 1991, or Mogrenore
(Boulgou province) in 1998, hosted up to 40,000 individuals during the paroxysmal phase of the gold rush.
Such abundant labour, outwardly excessive, is necessary because of the low level of material means
deployed. The activity is thus characterized by very low productivity, but a very large potential in terms of
available jobs:
- The actual extraction zone of the mine generally contains 30 to 40% of the active population on site
(not counting shops). This is the preserve of men, women and children being theoretically absent.
However, young boys of less than 15 years old can occasionally be seen hauling ore that was mined and
sorted at the bottom of the pit.
- The ore-processing areas and grinding shops, which can be several kilometres distant if there is
insufficient water on the mine site, host the remaining 60 to 70% of the working population on site.
These are occasional labourers coming from villages in the region, some from over 100 km away.
Here, the majority are generally women and children.
4

However, in the cotton-growing southwest of Burkina, with its majority population of Christian Mandé
people, the new artisanal gold mining sites are badly perceived and confronted with a lack of local
manpower. Mechanized grinding of the ore with “cereal mills” gradually replaces manual crushing, a very
heavy task traditionally performed by the women of the surrounding villages (Table 1).
The main artisanal gold mining sites in Burkina can surprise by their degree of structure and
organization, which might resemble a “small mine” if sufficient material means were deployed. This
organization, indispensable because of the size of the sites and the complex exploitation method, was set up
by the CBMP, which was very early on given a mandate by the Government to take this activity in hand.
The sites consist of well-defined workshops, where everybody has a specific task to carry out with specific
equipment. Some tasks are set aside for the elderly, such as watchmen, for women (manual grinding or
winnowing), for young boys (crushing, and transport of ore and water), or for girls (picking and sorting in
the waste heaps). The automatic character of the acts and the permanency of the tools enables the reliable
determination of an average theoretical productivity for each task. Such productivity, which can vary
between shifts from 200 to 500 kg of ore/man/day, drops to less than 50 kg of ore/man/day for heavy tasks,
such as manual crushing. Each task has its own fixed price that varies little from site-to-site. Among the
miners in the extraction zone, it is common to share the ore and thus the risk. This is performed according
to precise rules that are accepted beforehand by all members of the team (apparently a standard feature
shared by most artisanal gold miners in Africa). In the processing areas, however, it is common to pay the
labourers in cash for each task. Knowing the average productivity and the payments per task, it is possible
to evaluate the average cost of certain services per ton of ore processed (Table 2).
Table 2 – Productivity and cost per ton of several services carried out in the processing areas
Our analysis of activities and productivity has enabled us to establish the following order-of-magnitude
figures:
- A minimum of 50 artisans is needed to produce one ton of ore per day; and
- A minimum of 2.5 artisans is needed to produce one gram of gold per day.
PRODUCTION COST AND REVENUE OF THE ARTISAN MINERS
Based upon our field enquiries, the production cost for the owner of a gold-mining pit can be broken down
as follows: 2% for land rent of the plot (annual licence fee to be paid to the customary owner or site
administrator); 8% for the purchase of small equipment (such as tools, rope, pulleys, etc.); 20% for the
purchase of consumables (supports, wood, water, dynamite, diesel, mercury, animals for ritual sacrifices);
and 70% for the cost of subcontracting transport, crushing, washing, winnowing, and smithy. The total
amount of such expenses can easily be doubled with the, even occasional, rental of motorized equipment,
such as pumps, generators, compressors, or jack hammers.
The production cost CO can be calculated with the following formula:
5

FAM: Purchase of small equipment (CFA)
FLM: Mechanized equipment rental (CFA)FCS:
Consumables (CFA)
∆Min: Part of ore given to a sub-contractor (t)
CO = ΣFAM + ΣFLM + ΣFCS + (Σ∆Min × T × TRC × PAu) + ΣFST
T: Average ore grade (g/t Au)
TRC: Gold recovery rate (%)
PAU: Gold purchasing price paid by collector (CFA/g Au)
FST: Subcontracting costs (FCFA)
As an example, we estimated the average production cost per ton of ore on the reference site of Alga 3
(April 2002 data) to be:
CO /t Alga = 0.49 t ore + CFA 51,500
To reach the precarious financial equilibrium under such conditions, the minimum ore grade must be:
- 35.5 g/t Au if the produced gold is sold at the official market price of FCFA 4,500/g;
- 27.5 g/t Au if the produced gold is sold through parallel channels paying up to FCFA 6,000/g.
As ore grades at Alga are commonly between 20 and 60 g/t Au, it is obvious that, to be able to pay for
his operation, the artisanal miner generally will be forced to sell most of his production to the network of
clandestine buyers, who assure him 30% more revenue.
Only after enough ore has been extracted to cover all production costs will the earnings be shared among
the miners. Half of the remaining ore is owed to the pit owner, the other half being distributed in equal
parts among the various labourers, who may include the watchmen of the pit and the processing shed. It is
common for a shift boss to receive some extra ore as a bonus, which is taken from the pit owner’s share. A
miner’s revenue can be calculated as follows:
RM = [(Ot × Gr × Rec × PAu ) × ∆C - CO]/2 × Nt
Ot: Ore tonnage produced by the team (t)
Gr: Average ore grade (g/t Au)
Rec: Gold recovery rate (%)
PAU: Gold purchasing price paid by collector (CFA/g Au)
∆C: Unofficial mark-up of the collector (%)
Nt: Number of team members (h)
The collector’s mark-up is governed by strict rules, varying only slightly between sites. It corresponds
to the difference between the real weight and the weight announced by the collector using traditional assay
scales. The collector’s profit margin varies by agreement from 17% to 25% of the real weight according to
the used conventional commercial unit: mostly match stick (“brin”) or old CFA coins.
On the reference site of Alga, to gain € 1/day (CFA 655/d), a miner must process ore grading 43 g/t Au,
or 32 g/t Au, depending upon the marketing channel he wants to use. The pit owner, the “boss”, will
receive between four and 10 times more, depending upon the size of his permanent team.
Essentially, to make his operation pay, an artisanal miner in Burkina generally is forced:
- To mine only rich ore (>25 g/t Au); and
- To profit from the conditions offered by the unofficial channels.
THE INCREASING IMPORTANCE OF INFORMAL CHANNELS
The “fraudulent” part of gold production that, as mentioned above, seems to have steadily grown since the
more liberal mining laws have entered into force, can be selectively measured. It is fairly easily evaluated
on a given site with a well-defined perimeter. Such fraud can be estimated from an exact count of the staff
in each workshop, from an average productivity calculation for each task, and from “gold” assays of ore
and waste for the various processing steps. The crushing and grinding shops, the usual bottlenecks in ore
processing, are well suited to this type of approach. Such fraud can then be calculated using the following
formula:
3
Post-rush site, reorganized by a cooperative group, is typical of artisanal gold mining in north Burkina. Rudimentary mining (no pumping) in
massive quartz vein to 40 m depth..
6

F = PrD/PrR = PrD/[(Rtτ1 × Efτ1 × T1 × TRC1) +… …+ (RtτN × EfτN × TN × TRCN)]
F: Fraudulent part of production (%)
PrD: Declared gold production (g/d)
PrR: Real gold production (g/d)
Rtτ1…. RtτN: Average productivity for a task of processing cycles 1… to N (t/h/d)
Efτ1…. EfτN: Manpower for a task of processing cycles 1… to N (h)
T1…. TN: Grades of ore or waste at the start of processing cycles 1… to N (g/t Au)
TRC1…. TRCN: Gold-recovery rate for processing cycles 1 to N (%)
Our studies on five reference sites show that the official purchasing channels (CBMP or private) rarely
collect more than 20% of the gold produced on a site. In 2002, because of insufficient human or material
means, the CBMP estimated to be incapable of recovering more than 3 to 5% of the production in some
districts, such as Bagassi (near Boromo) and Kampti in Lobi country. Based on these data, the fraudulent
part of gold production in Burkina Faso is estimated to be close to 90%. For an official artisanal production
of 250 kg/year, the real production would thus be between 2 and 2.5 tons/year. This clandestine gold
represents a loss of earnings of about CFA 100 million/year (€ 0.15 million/year).
for the State and the provinces, through the Artisanal Gold Mining tax alone. The full loss of income,
counting all taxes, for the State probably exceeds CFA 1 billion/year (€ 1.5 million/year).
Experience has shown that the systematic control of gold-producing sites is an expensive and not always
efficient proposition for the authorities. To be effective, it should be accompanied by a reduction in the
difference between official and unofficial gold prices. This reduction in the mark-ups of middlemen
(officially appointed collectors and purchasing centres) should then be largely compensated by an increase
in the volume of transactions.
MAJOR SOCIAL AND MICRO-ECONOMIC IMPACT
A few figures will suffice for making a concrete evaluation of the local economic and social impact of
artisanal gold mining. For instance, each day at Alga (April 2002 figures):
- 17 tons of ore are mined and processed to produce 420 grams of raw gold.
- 1,750 miners and labourers work for an average salary of CFA 1,225/day (€ 1,85/day), including 700
women who work for an average salary of CFA 640/day (€ 0,98/day).
- CFA 2 million (€ 3,055) are distributed within a radius of about 40 km around the site, or about CFA
25/day/inhabitant (total population).
By simply extrapolating the probably real gold production figures of the country (i.e. 2 to 2.5 tons of
gold per year), it is not unreasonable to assume that, in past years, during each season of artisanal gold
mining in the Burkina countryside, close to CFA 10 billion (€ 15 millions) was injected into the local
economy, in addition to regular agricultural income. In the country, an average of 64% of the total wealth
generated by artisanal gold mining is directly redistributed to local “pit-side” producers. Gold is thus a
relatively “fair” (sensu “fair trade”) commodity for the artisans when compared to gemstones. This is
partly explained by the moderate operating costs and mark-ups of commercial channels (collectors and
purchasing centres).
A rush of opportunistic shopkeepers generally follows close upon the heels of that of the gold miners.
All is thus ready on the larger sites to catch the artisan’s money: cold beer, video shows, “escort girls”,
watches and cassette players. In 2002, at Nagrigré (the first rush of Zoundwéogo Province), only three
months after the discovery of the vein, almost 500 —mostly regional— shopkeepers were pressing around
the 2,000 artisan gold miners of the site, or one shopkeeper for four producers. At the same time, the rest of
Gomboussougou Province was faced with a severe shortage of basic services, such as smiths, millers,
cooks, butchers and transporters.
7

The water trade, especially in the Sahel zone, remains the monopoly of the village that accepts to supply
the miners with wells or boreholes. This trade, though an inexhaustible source of user conflicts with
farmers, is a well-spring of substantial profits. The village of Boulonga (1,500 inhabitants) that, during the
dry season, supplies about 50 m 3 /day of water to the neighbouring site of Alga at a cost of CFA 3,750/m 3 ,
daily receives in exchange between CFA 150,000 and 200,000 (up to € 305), or more than
CFA 100/day/inhabitant.
However, with the exception of some pit owners, most artisanal gold miners have neither the culture nor
the financial capacity to build up a sizeable capital. Their “meagre” earnings of about CFA 800 to 1000 per
day (€ 1,20 to 1,55 a day) are mostly spent on site to cover daily essentials, such as food, water, lodging,
transport and health services, the cost of which commonly is prohibitive in artisanal gold mining areas.
Most itinerant gold miners, whether local or foreign, have trouble saving enough to help the family that
stays behind in the village. Most of the wealth locally created by gold-mining activity never leaves the
province (Fig. 3).
PRP: pit owner; GDP: pit watchman; MNR: miner; TRM: ore transporter; GDH: shed watchman; CON: crusher;
PIL: grinder; TRE: water transporter; LVR: sluice washer; VAN: winnower; PRM: mill owner; MEU: miller; RLV: rewasher.
Fig. 3 – Reference site of Alga – distribution of income (in kCFA/day) in terms of tasks and distance
between mining site and the original village
THE ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT NEEDS MONITORING
Artisanal gold mining in Burkina locally can cause adverse ecological impacts, such as unprotected
abandoned sites, infertile farm land, damaged forests 4 , groundwater lowered through excessive pumping
4 At Gueguere (Ioba Province) equivalent of almost 30 ha of forest has been destroyed for shoring up a trench of 100 m length an 25 m depth.
8

(with non-recycled pumping water), and various types of Man-made pollution, in particular from electric
batteries 5 .
However, the main environmental problem resides in the massive use of chemicals on site, especially
mercury. This element, legally forbidden and not even a decade ago virtually unknown by the artisanal
gold miners in the country, today is found on almost all such sites of Burkina; it is estimated that in
producing each gram of gold, between 0.5 and 1 gram of mercury is used for amalgamating the gold
concentrates at the end of flotation. Nation-wide, between 500 and 750 kg Hg 6 are used annually on the
sites; this mercury, which mainly originates from Ghana, is sold by the collectors for between CFA 500 and
1,000 (€ 0,75 an 1,50) per “ball” of 15 to 20 grams, or CFA 25 to 50/g. Under the climatic conditions of
the country, most of the mercury will vaporize, and the risk of contaminating the water resources is
minimal. As part of the PRECAGEME 7 project, eight water samples from the major Essakane site (Sahel
province of Oudalan) were analysed (Zunino and Ki, 2001). No trace of mercury was detected (

environmental problems, and to draw up an efficient intervention strategy for limiting future harm.
WORRYING HEALTH AND SAFETY ASPECTS
Working conditions on artisanal gold mining sites are commonly high-risk and very hard, especially for the
women and children who are omnipresent in the processing areas. Mortal or disabling accidents, though
rarely declared, are common on the mine sites. They occur during ground collapse, rock falls, and flooding,
and caused by badly propped-up pit walls, pillars that are too small, irregular pumping, the piling up of
waste too close to the pits, and poorly controlled use of explosives (like in Ghana, with a slow fuse and
matches). The last disaster given media coverage was in November 2001 at Guéguéré (Ioba Province),
where a pile of waste slid into a trench, officially burying 35 miners. Other, more long-term, hazards to
miners come from operating and ore-processing conditions. Their impact may be particularly heavy on
women, sometimes pregnant, and the small children with them. The inadvertent exposure to rock dust, as
well as to vapours from chemical products such as mercury, but also nitric acid 8 , can have disastrous
consequences such as severe neurological or lung diseases. Other, less severe, hazards include fumes
escaping from the mills, noise and vibrations.
During a rush, the living conditions for the entire mining community on a site can become dramatic.
Such communities commonly are cut off from all educational or health structures, in a temporary camp that
quickly becomes overpopulated and filthy, and where promiscuity is extreme: malnutrition, precarious
housing, a lack of drinking water, the absence of sufficient sanitary installations, all favour the development
of epidemics. In 1998, the Mogrenore site (Tiba District, Boulgou Province) became a cholera vector that
spread near to Ouagadougou (Toux and Thomassin, 1999). In 2002, living conditions at Nagrigré
(Zoundweogo province) made the authorities fear a similar outbreak. To this must be added the fact that
children do not attend school (they start at a very young age participating in artisanal gold mining work),
and the excessive consumption of alcohol and drugs (Nigerian “Blue-Blue” or “C14” amphetamines), and
prostitution serve as fertile soil for criminality and AIDS.
WHAT IS THE BEST DEVELOPMENT POLICY?
Faced with such economic and social stakes, choosing the right development policy is far from easy.
Would it be better to provide direct assistance to the traditional artisanal activity, or should one foster the
emergence of small enterprise that can disseminate better methods? Obviously, the role of an artisanal
mine in sustainable development will be quite variable. Moreover, the approach of providing support to a
community commonly is in conflict with providing support to a small mine. How to decide between these
two complementary approaches? An additional problem is that budget restrictions often force ‘triage’: the
support-of-communities approach entails the risk of too selective humanitarian-type assistance, but the
small-mine-support approach not uncommonly results in a few opportunistic persons profiting from the
development-aid funds, which, in the first case, at least are more equitably distributed (Jaques et al., 2003).
Regardless of the selected option, the resulting actions must imperatively be of suitable duration (i.e. at
least 4 to 5 years), and should privilege a general and participative approach to address absolutely all key
problems, whether social, cultural, technical, economic, financial, or environmental. Joint actions for
strengthening the institutional services and organizations in charge of the sector are of paramount
importance. It can be said that:
- Any assistance for Burkina artisans, thus addressing more than 100,000 individuals, must be based on
immediate-assistance actions, coupled with long-term prevention and educational actions.
- Any assistance of small-mine entrepreneurs in Burkina, addressing at most a hundred individuals, must
be based on short- to medium-term actions of expert assistance, and formal on-the-job training.
8 Hot nitric acid locally is used after flotation for the roasting of sulphuric oxides and the liberation of gold from concentrates.
10

WHY THE CHOICE OF SMALL-SCALE ENTERPRISES?
The large international cooperation organizations today consider small private enterprise as the driving
forces of regional economic development in developing countries. Such small, flexible and adaptable
enterprises enable the multiplication of economic opportunities and thus an optimum valorisation of local
resources. The semi-industrial sector can be a platform for design, use and distribution of innovating
processes. It can foster technological dynamism and increased productivity through creating new and better
qualified job opportunities.
In the mining sector, small enterprises specifically help in valorising an “intermediate” resource that is
left aside by artisanal miners and big industry alike. They also help in further formalizing the sector, thus
helping it to gain more credibility in the eyes of funding organizations. In addition, direct support of a
small enterprise can give relatively rapid and palpable results. Another advantage is that a small mine
respecting the social and environmental constraints can induce better working practices among artisans. It
thus serves as a catalyst, helping with the optimization of general artisanal activity and thus gradually
improving the productivity of the sector as a whole.
WHY THE NEED FOR SLOW AND WELL-CONSIDERED MECHANIZATION?
Vigilance is obviously required: an “all-economic” solution should not be to the detriment of social
redistribution. The emergence of a network of small mines should not upset the existing, fragile,
equilibrium that, as mentioned above, permits at least a slight distribution of wealth to a large number of
people. It is essential that jobs are not roughly eliminated, thus depriving entire communities of a
substantial portion of their income. A change in the scale of the activity, if necessary, should be gradual,
and if possible, sustaining alternative activities in parallel.
Under actual Burkina Faso conditions, the introduction on a traditional artisanal gold mining site of a
crusher-grinder unit with a capacity of one ton of ore per hour, results in a job loss for about 425 local
labourers, including 350 women (Fig. 8). Each of these daily takes home a little nest egg of € 1.2, or the
equivalent of € 510 for the group, in a country where half the population lives with less than € 0.4 per day
(United-Nations, 2003).
Fig. 5 – Example of job losses through the introduction of new technology
11

Today, the golden rule in Burkina Faso is to introduce a “non-competition” clause between artisanal
mining and small mines. These two activities should strive to complement each other, thus avoiding
resource conflicts. To do so, the small entrepreneurs must resolutely turn toward resources that are
technically inaccessible to artisan miners. Their priority should be to tackle abandoned artisanal sites for
the processing of:
- Mine waste and tailings, i.e. anthropic deposits, grading 3-12 g/t Au; and
- Residual low-grade ore left un-mined (

3. The gold is complexed on zinc at the base of the tailings heap; the cementation cell consists of an
emptied truck battery; the cyanide solution is recovered in a barrel.
4. The cement is dissolved in sulphuric acid; the auriferous concentrate is then purified with nitric acid to
obtain ‘doré’.
5. The depressions are emptied by shovel; the non-neutralized cyanide waste is transported by
wheelbarrow to an unprotected storage area.
Fig. 5 – Cyanidation “garden plot”
In late-2002, the largest cyanidation of this type employed 12 permanent salaried staff, producing
350 g/month of gold from 160 t of tailings. The gold recovery rate was around 70%. Information provided
by the operator, compared with the results of on-site analysis of the process (Thomassin, 2003), shows that
this type of operation can only be profitable when making use of certain informal commercial channels.
These sell cyanide at a cost of CFA 1,000/kg (against FCFA 2,600/kg on the official market) and buy the
produced gold at CFA 6,000 to 6,500 per gram (CFA 4,500/g on the official market). These conditions
help in limiting the operating cost, here estimated at CFA 16,000/t, and thus to reduce the minimum gold
grade in the final tailings, which drops to around 4 g/t Au.
ARTISANAL MINER: THE ONLY LEGAL STATUS OPEN TO SMALL-SCALE
ENTREPRENEURS
Burkina authorities have the political will to develop the mining sector, as shown by the new Mining Code
of 1995 and its application decrees of 1997. Certain texts specifically cover the ASM sector, making a
distinction between small- and artisanal mines.
Under present-day conditions, however, “artisan miner” is the only legal status accessible to a small
entrepreneur that permits him rapidly to make his operation pay. The reason is that, contrary to a small
mine, an artisanal mine has no obligation to hold an exploration or mining licence. The only requirement is
that of an “Authorization for artisanal exploitation”, delivered by the Directorate General of Mines,
Geology and Quarries (DGMGC), after consulting the concerned local authorities. This authorization
13

covers all commodities and types of deposit, except old mine-waste dumps and industrial minerals.
Reserved to nationals, it can cover up to 100 ha and is delivered for a period of two years, indefinitely
renewable. Its holder has priority to obtain a mining licence in case a substantial deposit is discovered.
This authorization, however, is subject to some major constraints: it does not have the value of a mining
licence and thus cannot be ceded, or used as a financial guarantee for obtaining a bank loan; it does not stop
the superposition of an exploration licence by someone else, which may result in its suppression to the
advantage of a mining licence (no financial compensation rules are defined). This means that, as soon as
his project becomes profitable, the entrepreneur must try and safeguard his perimeter by requesting a
“small-mine” exploration licence.
Table 3 – Mining-related fees for the ASM sector in Burkina Faso (on 01/01/2003)
In early 2003, 38 valid artisanal exploitation authorizations had been delivered in Burkina Faso, 13 of
which were attributed to CBMP alone. Several new requests were in the pipeline. At the same time, only
one “small-mine” exploitation licence had been granted.
PROBLEMS FACING THE SMALL-SCALE ENTREPRENEUR
A lack of knowledge of the resources seems to be one of the main problems facing the small-scale mining
entrepreneur in Burkina Faso. Here, as elsewhere, most exploration work was done by the industrial sector
looking for major deposits. The exploration grid covering the ground generally is unsuited to finding a
modest deposit of the right size for a small mine. Only the “visible part of the iceberg” can be assessed.
Such localized work (e.g. a mineralized intersection in a trench or borehole) never allows saving on a
further phase of detailed exploration. The problem is that this type of exploration represents a capital
investment outside the financial reach of such local entrepreneurs. Respecting the classic
“exploration/reserves” ratio of 1/100, a budget of about CFA 30 million (€ 45 000) is needed to prove
reserves of 500 kg of gold, but who to approach and how to find such money without having at least
already some proven reserves? The old ‘Catch-22’, or vicious circle, situation once more rears its ugly
head. The only hope is to obtain occasional exploration credits from funding organizations or potential
investors, through well-targeted and sustained promotion.
Though exploration costs generally are high, the budgets to be planned for can be appreciably reduced
through a systematic use of low-cost exploration methods and tools. These include trenching, artisanal
pits 10 , soil geophysics (electrical), and short destructive boreholes (Table 4).
In addition, the small entrepreneur commonly is faced with a whole series of other, more or less related,
difficulties:
- Legal and administrative difficulties to have free access to updated mining records, to obtain an
exploitation licence in an attractive area, and finally to safeguard this exploitation licence beyond the
legal 2-year period (indispensable condition for a carefree investment);
10 To dig a pit of 30 m depth, 4 labourers need about 2 months.
14

- Technical difficulties to have access to expert and consulting services, to suitable equipment at a
reasonable cost (locally manufactured if possible), and to produce certain types of documents (e.g. an
environmental-impact study);
- Accounting difficulties to ensure the proper management of his project;
- Commercial difficulties to sell his production at an acceptable price; and
- Financial difficulties to produce a rigorous economic feasibility study, to find an interested banker
capable of analysing such a study, and finally to have access under acceptable conditions to a
suitable financial plan.
Table 4 – Comparative cost of exploration workings, including sampling at 1-m intervals and gold analyses
(based on BUMIGEB costs, 2003)
PROPOSALS FOR ACTION
A coherent development policy for the ASM sector requires simultaneous actions of observation and
control of this activity, and of direct assistance to the operators. It is of primary importance clearly to
dissociate these two fields of action (i.e. the “carrot” and the “stick”) in order to gain a maximum of
credibility and confidence among the miners. Each of these actions should be the responsibility of a
distinct and well-defined organization, with clear prerogatives.
Assistance for small miners might be coordinated and/or centralized within a light and mobile structure
of the Support Group for Small Miners type. This structure, consisting of a multidisciplinary team with
competence in all fields concerning small mines (legislation, techniques, accounting, funding, etc.), should
play the role of promoter, mediator, consultant and expert, proposing quality assistance to the entrepreneur
for all stages of his project (Fig. 6).
Pilot centres for experimentation and specialized technical demonstration, in particular for ore
beneficiation, could be part of the structure. Such centres, which should clearly answer the expressed needs
of operators, would have the objective of promoting innovative processes that lead to better profitability,
and which respect safety-, health- and environmental constraints. They could also serve as a setting for the
organization of regular field schools, which would train not only entrepreneurs but also government agents
involved in the ASM sector. As a priority, a pilot centre for the processing by cyanidation of waste and
tailings should be organized as soon as possible.
In partnership with concerned State organizations and services (DEMPEC, BUMIGEB, CBMP and
institutional project teams) and possibly with NGOs or specialized local organizations, the Support group
might also organize specific and repeated awareness and education actions targeted at the artisanal
community, covering workplace safety, child labour and AIDS, for instance. At the same time and with the
help of local mediators and popularizers, it might be possible to incite the artisans to formalize their activity
as well, for instance, through cooperative organizations.
15

IN CONCLUSION
Fig. 11 – Proposals for assistance to the ASM sector in Burkina Faso
Initial technical and socio-economic analysis must be considered as an inevitable preliminary step for any
slightly ambitious operational assistance to the artisanal mining sector. It helps in the exact outlining of the
complex problems affecting this sector, providing not only a good understanding of the environment in
which intervention will take place, but also guaranteeing the participation spirit that is indispensable for
local appropriation, and thus a durable benefit, of the actions.
Specifically concerning the gold network in Burkina Faso, the analyses have clearly shown the
following qualitative points, further supported by quantitative figures:
1. Artisanal gold mining has great micro-economic and social impact. This makes it possible to
redistribute some of this wealth to a large number of people. It massively creates jobs in rural areas,
injecting substantial wealth that complements the, often insufficient, farming income. Thus, even
though it generates but little revenue for the government’s coffers and can be a locally worrying
source of poor health and safety conditions, artisanal gold mining as a whole indubitably remains a
positive activity for the country.
2. In recent years, artisanal gold mining has undergone a true mutation. Due in particular to a resource
that is becoming increasingly rare and inaccessible in the traditional ASM regions of the Sahel,
artisans have progressively migrated to as yet unexplored regions in the south, where they are working
new targets in a new environment. Here, they are not only confronted by more severe technical
constraints, but also by a dearth of local manpower. These new conditions have gradually forced them
to seek a greater level of professionalism and mechanisation.
3. This evolution seems favourable for a more radical change of scale in ASM operations. However,
such change must be smooth and not upset the existing system. Despite the great efforts made by the
authorities to promote mining enterprise in recent years, not all conditions are as yet in place for
16

seeing the emergence of a network of small mines in Burkina Faso. Such efforts must continue and be
amplified, to be able tomorrow to fill the obvious gap in exploration results, to safeguard the legal
framework of entrepreneurs, and to convince investors that “small mines” can be an honourable and
profitable activity.
The work of analysis and modelling, carried out by BRGM in collaboration with BUMIGEB, has
resulted in a detailed and quantified evaluation of the artisanal gold sector in Burkina Faso, in a rigorous
identification of the best targets from the perspective of supporting small mines and, more generally, in
proposals for concrete actions to improve the contribution of ASM to durable national development. We
have provided qualitative and quantitative arguments that, we hope, will be of real use for defending the
position that development aid to the ASM sector should be a national priority. Even though today, many of
the bilateral and multi-lateral funding organizations are beginning to understand the true importance of the
artisanal and small-scale mining sector, national authorities often lack sufficient arguments, backed up by
figures, to defend the priority aspect of this sector. An efficient way of immediately clarifying the
contribution of artisanal mining to national development could be to clearly inscribe artisanal mining as a
major target in the national Poverty Reduction Strategic Paper, or PRSP.
17

References
Jaques E. (2001) – La mine artisanale en Afrique : aspects techniques et environnementaux. – Séminaire sur
l'exploitation minière artisanale en Afrique, Ouagadougou, 01-03/12/2000. – Occasional CIFEG
Publication 2001/37, p. 87-93.
Jaques E., Greffié C., Billa M., Thomassin J.F. and Zida B. (2003) – Recherche de cibles pour le
développement de petites mines d'or au Burkina Faso. – BRGM Report RC-52143-FR.
Jaques E., Orru J.F. and Pelon R. (Scheduled for June 2004) – Développement artisanal en Afrique : quelle
place pour la mine artisanale ? – New BRGM Journal (unpublished).
Jaques E. et al (2004). La filière artisanale de l’or au Burkina Faso : bilan, perspectives d’évolution et
recherche de cibles pour le développement de petites mines. MAE/CIFEG regional workshop,
Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso – November 2003. CIFEG Occasional Publication 2004/39, pp. 41-59.
Milesi J.-P., Feybesse J.-L., Pinna P. and Deschamps Y. (2001). – GIS Africa: A 1:2,000,000-scale tool for
sustainable development. – Journal of the Geoscience Society of Cameroon, p. 75.
Numerical maps and GIS on the Geology and Mineral Resources of Africa at 1:2,000,000 scale (2003,
unpublished). – BRGM unpublished.
Thomassin J.F. (2003) – Orpaillage et petite mine au Burkina Faso. – Technical Note BRGM, REM/EPI
unpublished.
Thomassin J.F. and Toux L. (1999) – Projet PRD 519. Rapport de mission Burkina Faso. – Technical Note
BRGM - SMN/REM.
UNCTAD (1997) – Management of commodity resources in the context of sustainable development:
governance issues for the mineral sector, pp 37-43.
United-Nations (2003) – Burkina Faso : L'indice de pauvreté est en hausse. – http://www.irinnews.org
Zunino C. and Ki J.C. (2001) – Etude hydrologique et d'approvisionnement en eau des régions minières
sélectionnées. Assistance technique pour le renforcement des capacités nationales en gestion de
l'environnement. – Final PRECAGEME report.
18