Proving artisanal cobalt can meet the standard.
A GIZ-run, industry- and EU-funded pilot in Lualaba that set out to show an artisanal cobalt mine can operate to international health, safety and environmental standards, and to bring the first such mine to life under the 2018 Mining Code.
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A pilot to formalise one mine, as a model for many.
A pilot to formalise one mine, as a model for many.
Cobalt for Development describes itself as a voluntary, cross-industry initiative working to transform artisanal and small-scale cobalt mining in Lualaba Province: to show it can meet international standards for health, safety and the environment, improve living and working conditions, and help formalise the sector. GIZ implements it on behalf of, and funded by, participating companies, and pursues no commercial interest of its own.
It grew out of Amnesty International's 2017 report on cobalt and child labour: BMW commissioned a GIZ feasibility study in 2018, and C4D launched in 2019 as one of the first cross-industry collaborations on artisanal cobalt. None of the funding companies mine or buy the minerals from the sites; the point is a credible, independent demonstration, framed throughout by the OECD Due Diligence Guidance.
The early work paired a mining track with a community programme in the village of Kisote, south of Kolwezi: a new school, savings groups, farming and family support that largely succeeded. The mining pilot proved harder. The first candidate site at Kisote was abandoned when drilling showed the cobalt lay too deep for artisanal extraction, beginning a years-long search for a workable legal site.
That search is the heart of the C4D story. After failed attempts on an industrial concession, it converged in 2024 on Tombolo, a site subleased by Gécamines to the state cobalt company EGC, now set to become the first legal artisanal cobalt mine under the 2018 Mining Code. The timeline traces how the pilot got there.
An honest reading.
C4D is candid in its own reporting: private-sector due diligence can open space, but only governments drive lasting reform. The breakthrough at Tombolo came not from a company but from an act of Congolese policy, Gécamines subleasing the site to EGC, reinforced by a 2025 presidential decree recognising the pilot as a priority.
Its most durable legacy may be capacity, not a single mine. Five training modules, co-developed with SAEMAPE and BGR and benchmarked internationally, are now built into SAEMAPE's curriculum, with government agents trained as trainers, so the work outlives the project's funding.
The missing piece, in C4D's own words, is market access: until responsible artisanal cobalt is rewarded over black-market prices, formalisation has no lasting incentive. This profile follows C4D's own restraint and does not overclaim.
More initiatives, mapped and tracked.
Cobalt for Development is one of dozens of programmes in the ASM-cobalt space. Browse the full registry, or tell us what we have missed.