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

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.
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