Addressing the root cause: poverty.
Children mine and adults take risks because households have no other income. The Alliance aims to create alternatives outside the mines, so that mine work becomes a choice, and describes economic resilience as a foundation for everything else it is trying to achieve.
Why income beyond the mine matters.
The economic-resilience pillar works on household savings and income. In the FCA’s approach, mine safety and child remediation address the symptoms of poverty and economic resilience addresses its cause: a family with savings and a second source of income need not send a child to the mine, and a bad month at the pit need not become a crisis.
Working through the local partner A.F.A. (Alternatives for Actions), the FCA builds three things at once: financial education and group savings, entrepreneurship through training, mentorship and microfinance, and agriculture on the region's underused fertile land.
The pillar works through Village Savings and Loan Associations: small, community-run groups where members save together, lend to each other and build a financial buffer.
Building income that does not depend on the pit.
Savings & loan groups
Community-run VSLAs where members save together and access affordable credit, building a financial buffer.
Entrepreneurship
Training, mentorship and microfinance so people can start and grow small businesses.
Agriculture
Putting underused fertile land to work, creating food and income outside mining.
Savings groups and new income, as the Alliance reports them.
As we work with local cooperatives to professionalise the way artisanal mines are operated, committed to making artisanal mining a dignified livelihood, we also want to create and promote alternatives outside the mines, so that mine work becomes a choice and is no longer the only economically viable, accessible option.The Fair Cobalt AllianceMore initiatives, mapped and tracked.
The Fair Cobalt Alliance is one of dozens of programmes in the artisanal cobalt space. Browse the full register, or tell us what is missing.