The open reference on artisanal cobalt.
Most of what is written about ASM cobalt is scattered across many places, often paywalled, and hard to see as a whole. The Cobalt Hub gathers it in one place: who the actors are, what is happening, what the evidence says, and what is being done about it.
New to cobalt? Start with the basics
Cobalt dug by hand, by more than 150,000 people.
Why this hub exists.
Solid information on artisanal cobalt exists, but it is scattered: spread across reports, datasets, news, standards and project pages, in several languages, often behind paywalls or buried in passing mentions. Simply finding what already exists, and seeing how the pieces fit together, takes real work.
The Cobalt Hub brings it together in one place: a browsable registry of the actors, a database of initiatives, a library of the evidence, a map of the regulation, and a dated feed of developments. Every figure is sourced and dated, and every claim links back to where it came from.
It is built as a shared, open starting point for everyone working on artisanal cobalt, and it points outward to the people and organisations doing the work.
What you’ll find here.
Initiatives registry
The programmes and pilots working on safety, child labour, traceability and livelihoods, with their status.
See initiativesStakeholder registry
A browsable directory of the state bodies, companies, cooperatives, NGOs, standards and funders shaping ASM cobalt.
Browse stakeholdersUpdates feed
A dated, source-rated feed of the developments reshaping artisanal cobalt and DRC mineral governance.
Read the feedLibrary
The key reports, investigations, academic studies and standards on ASM cobalt, grouped and linked.
Open the libraryThe Numbers
Every published figure on ASM cobalt, shown as a spread of contested readings rather than a single 'true' number.
See the numbersRegulation
The DRC laws, export-quota regime and international rules that reach artisanal cobalt, including the famous ones that don't.
Map the rulesEvery figure here is sourced; counts and shares vary by year and method. Hover any number for its source.
ARECOMS sets a 1 July effective date and a 5 July customs cut-off for the first-half quota forfeiture
A late-June ARECOMS notice operationalised the forfeiture flagged in June: the measure took effect on 1 July 2026, and only cobalt entered into the customs system by 5 July 2026 could still ship under first-half quotas, with unshipped volumes reverting to the strategic quota and no carry-forward. ARECOMS restated it can revoke export rights for missed deadlines, illegal quota transfers or processing of unauthorised material.
As of July 2026, three cabinet-adopted mining decrees remain unpromulgated
The strategic-reserve decree (April), the strategic-minerals-list decree raising the royalty to 10% (May) and the CEEC certification decree (March) were each adopted only as drafts in the Council of Ministers. By early July none had been signed by the Prime Minister or published in the Journal Officiel, so they are not yet in force; the 10% royalty in particular applies only on the Prime Minister’s signature. Congolese press confirms the drafts, but no gazetted text was located, a reminder that an adopted draft decree is not an enacted one.
Fastmarkets: DRC cobalt-hydroxide shipments run well below allocated quotas
Fastmarkets reported that only about a third to a half of Q4-2025 and Q1-2026 cobalt-hydroxide allocations were physically shipped, with roughly 7,800 t clearing customs between December 2025 and end-February 2026, citing paperwork, logistics and a bridge collapse on a key route. Single-source market intelligence, attributed to unnamed DRC operators; it aligns with Glencore’s reported 39% year-on-year cobalt drop but is not independently confirmed by customs data.
KSQF and UNICEF partner to withdraw children from mining in Haut-Katanga
The Sharjah-based Khalid bin Sultan Al Qasimi Humanitarian Foundation announced funding for a UNICEF child-labour project in the Kambove health zone, aiming to withdraw more than 200 children from artisanal sites, provide cash transfers to 100 families and open schooling and vocational pathways. It builds on UNICEF’s TPS+ model, which reports 1,015 children removed from mines in 2024.
Help keep the picture complete.
Spotted something missing or out of date? This is an open, evolving reference. Tell us, or point us to a source we should add.