A short guide to why cobalt matters, where it comes from, how artisanal mining works, and why the Fair Cobalt Alliance stays engaged rather than walking away.
Cobalt is a metal used in the cathodes of most lithium-ion batteries, the kind that power electric vehicles, phones and grid storage. It improves energy density and stability, which is why demand has climbed with the energy transition.
Most of the world's cobalt is mined in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where it is usually found alongside copper. USGS estimates that the DRC accounted for about 73% of global mined cobalt in 2025.
Industrial, mechanised operations run by large companies. The majority of DRC cobalt comes this way.
Informal, labour-intensive digging with hand tools. A minority of output; published workforce estimates span roughly 67,000–255,000 people.
For many families in the cobalt belt, artisanal mining is the most accessible source of cash income available.
Unsupported tunnels, no equipment, buyer-controlled scales and, where poverty bites hardest, child labour.
The child-labour problem in cobalt is real. Investigations have traced child-mined cobalt into the supply chains of major electronics and vehicle brands, and research in the copper-cobalt belt finds a meaningful share of children working in or around mines.
The Fair Cobalt Alliance traces the cause to poverty: where households have no alternative income, children work and adults take risks. In its account, removing a child at the gate without changing why they were there can leave a family poorer and the problem hidden.
This is the backdrop the Fair Cobalt Alliance was created to address, by working on the causes at the source: household income, school places and safer sites.
In the Alliance’s view, even total disengagement would not end artisanal mining; it would remove income and oversight.
The Alliance warns that cutting ASM out of supply chains could displace hundreds of thousands of workers with no alternative.
The Alliance argues that demand channelled toward responsible production becomes a force for better conditions.
The Alliance points to the safer mines, schools and savings groups it supports on the ground.
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