Mapping the ground truth of artisanal mining.
IPIS is an independent Antwerp research institute whose mine-site mapping and incident-monitoring infrastructure, built over more than a decade in eastern DRC, now reaches the cobalt copperbelt. Its Kufatilia system was extended into Lualaba, the heart of artisanal cobalt, in 2023.
Visit ipisresearch.be View its entry in the sector dataAn independent research institute in Antwerp.
IPIS (International Peace Information Service) is an independent, non-profit research institute based in Antwerp. Its stated mission is to provide tailored information, analysis, capacity enhancement and policy advice to actors working toward durable peace, sustainable development and human rights. It works across four areas: Natural Resources, Business and Human Rights, Conflict Mapping, and Arms Trade and Security.
Only the Natural Resources programme is profiled here. Since 2009, IPIS has built an open map of artisanal and small-scale mining in the DRC, sending field teams to geolocate sites and document who works them and under what conditions. That work began with the 3T minerals (tin, tungsten, tantalum) and gold of the east; what makes it matter to this Hub is that the same methodology and monitoring tools have since been extended toward cobalt.
For cobalt, its scope is narrower: IPIS does not yet publish a mine-by-mine map of the copper-cobalt belt the way it does for the Kivus. Its cobalt footprint is its incident-monitoring system Kufatilia, active in Lualaba since 2023, and a focused set of cobalt due-diligence and EU-regulation analyses, on top of a field method built to map exactly this kind of sector.
A map, a monitor and an evidence base.
It maps mining sites
Field teams geolocate artisanal sites and note the minerals dug, worker numbers, women’s and children’s presence, armed-actor interference, roadblocks and traceability status, in an open database of over 3,400 sites.
It monitors incidents (Kufatilia)
A community reporting system that logs accidents, violence and environmental harm linked to mining, now covering the cobalt province of Lualaba alongside the eastern provinces.
It analyses due diligence
It compares cobalt and 3T sourcing, assesses traceability schemes, and tests them against the OECD Due Diligence Guidance that underpins responsible cobalt.
It informs EU regulation
It brings DRC field evidence to the EU Battery Regulation, Critical Raw Materials Act and Conflict Minerals Regulation debates as they reach cobalt.
What the published record supports.
Site counts cover eastern DRC (3T and gold); as of June 2023 the database held 6,955 total site visits. The Lualaba expansion is incident monitoring, with CSOs ADDH, AFEDECO and IBGDH; the site census covers eastern DRC. Figures: IPIS.
Public donors and a local network.
IPIS’s mineral research is grant-funded and delivered with local civil-society networks. The cobalt-relevant work draws on EU, Belgian, Dutch and US public funding.
European Union
Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Netherlands)
EPRM
OECDDonors and partners vary by project; those listed back the mapping, Kufatilia and due-diligence outputs. The three Lualaba CSOs run incident reporting on the ground around Kolwezi, Mutshatsha and Lubudi.
Every source, linked.
The primary IPIS pages, datasets and cobalt-relevant outputs behind this profile.
From the Kivus to the copperbelt.
- 2009
IPIS begins systematic field mapping of artisanal mining sites in eastern DRC.
- 2010
It contributes implementation findings to the OECD and ICGLR due-diligence pilot in the Great Lakes, the template later applied to cobalt.
- 2018
IPIS launches Kufatilia, a community system for reporting mining-related incidents, in the eastern provinces.
- 2020
It publishes its first dedicated cobalt briefing, on child labour and large-scale-mining corruption in Katanga and Lualaba.
- 2021
A comparative analysis of cobalt versus 3T sourcing from the DRC is released with EurAc.
- 2023
Kufatilia is extended into Lualaba, with training for CSOs in Kolwezi: IPIS’s first operational presence in the cobalt zone.
- 2024
IPIS convenes a debate on Congolese cobalt, EU battery and raw-materials regulation, and direct investment.
Active, and extending toward cobalt.
IPIS is active and independent. Its work for cobalt is an open evidence base, a community monitoring system and a body of due-diligence analysis, built for the minerals of the east and now extending toward the copperbelt.
Two caveats. First, IPIS does not yet map individual cobalt mine sites the way it maps the Kivus; the detailed copper-cobalt site mapping often cited (around 150,000 to 200,000 artisanal miners) comes from the 2019 BGR and Carter Center study. Second, IPIS stresses that its incident data is selective and statistically unrepresentative. Its data is field-level observation; the picture of the sector it gives is partial.
Its connections across the sector
Every organisation and site the sector data connects to it, grouped by the kind of link. Each name opens its own page, with the dates and sources of the link.
Funders
Implements
More initiatives, mapped and tracked.
IPIS is one of dozens of programmes and bodies shaping ASM cobalt. Browse the full register, or tell us what is missing.