Building one rulebook for artisanal cobalt.
A coalition launched in 2020 by the World Economic Forum’s Global Battery Alliance to formalise Congolese artisanal cobalt and end child labour. Its central product, the ASM Cobalt Framework, was handed to the Responsible Minerals Initiative in 2022.
Visit globalbattery.orgA coalition built to harmonise a crowded field.
By 2020 the response to artisanal cobalt had become a thicket of overlapping schemes. The Cobalt Action Partnership was created to give them a common backbone: a shared, progressive set of expectations against which any artisanal site could be measured and improved, aligned with Congolese law and the OECD Due Diligence Guidance.
Convened by the Global Battery Alliance, the WEF-incubated platform of battery value-chain companies and organisations, it brought carmakers, refiners, traders, NGOs, the DRC government and intergovernmental observers around one table. Its stated vision was to eliminate child and forced labour from the cobalt value chain and to give responsibly-produced artisanal cobalt a legitimate route to market rather than a blanket ban.
Its signature deliverable was the ASM Cobalt Framework: a tiered standard with progressive levels of achievement, so under-resourced sites could improve step by step instead of being excluded outright. Co-developed with the Responsible Cobalt Initiative and supply-chain partners, the framework’s technical ownership was transferred to the Responsible Minerals Initiative in February 2022.
Folded into RMI, not a standalone brand today.
The Cobalt Action Partnership is best understood as a 2020-2022 effort whose technical work now lives inside the Responsible Minerals Initiative as the ASM Cobalt Normative Framework. The Global Battery Alliance refers to CAP in the past tense, and its flagship effort today is the Battery Passport.
The most recent firmly-dated milestones are from 2023. No published evidence of completed site assessments or certifications under the framework was found through 2026, so the practical state of on-the-ground piloting is unclear. The honest description is "transitioned into RMI’s ASM cobalt programme", not "actively running".
From launch to handover.
- 2017
The Global Battery Alliance is launched at the World Economic Forum, with cobalt child labour a founding concern.
- 2020
The Cobalt Action Partnership is formally launched; the DRC Minister of Mines joins the steering committee in December.
- 2021
The GBA pledges to end child labour and announces a Fund for the Prevention of Child Labour, targeting US$21 million over three years.
- 2022
A memorandum of understanding transfers the ASM Cobalt standard work to the Responsible Minerals Initiative.
- 2023
RMI publishes the ASM Cobalt Normative Framework v1 and works with a DRC government technical committee on pilot assessment tools.
Four jobs for one coalition.
A common standard
Draft and agree the ASM Cobalt Framework: a single, OECD-aligned baseline of ESG expectations for artisanal cobalt sites in the DRC.
Market access
Give responsibly-produced artisanal cobalt a legitimate path into global battery supply chains, instead of a blanket de-risking ban.
End child labour
Back the UNICEF-administered Fund for the Prevention of Child Labour in mining communities, targeting the root causes of child labour in the Lualaba and Haut-Katanga copper belt.
Harmonise initiatives
Align the crowded field of cobalt programmes so they reinforce one another rather than duplicate effort.
A battery-industry coalition with government at the table.
Convened by the Global Battery Alliance, with the Responsible Minerals Initiative as secretariat and, later, owner of the framework. The steering committee mixed industry, NGOs and the DRC state.
Global Battery Alliance
ERG
Pact
Fair Cobalt AllianceSteering committee and partners as listed by the GBA around 2020-2021; rosters shifted over time.
What can be verified.
Few hard outcome numbers are published. No completed site assessments or certifications under the ASM Cobalt Framework were on the public record through 2026, so treat coverage claims with caution. RMI’s standard was still in its pilot-tooling phase on the latest public record (early 2023).
More initiatives, mapped and tracked.
The Cobalt Action Partnership is one of dozens of programmes in the ASM cobalt space. Browse the full register, or tell us what is missing.