Supporting Burkina Faso in Eliminating Mercury Use in Artisanal and Small-Scale Gold Mining

In 2016, the Global Environment Facility (GEF) approved the Global Opportunities for Long-term Development (GOLD) programme to help artisanal gold miners phase out the use of mercury in gold extraction and reduce its harmful impacts on health and the environment.
As part of this initiative, the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) launched the preparatory phase of a five-year project in Burkina Faso.

Officially starting in early 2018, the project aims to:

• strengthen national policies supporting the formalization of the artisanal mining sector,

• establish a gold-buying scheme,

• build the capacity of national experts in mercury-free extraction technologies,

• and raise awareness and share best practices within the sector.

Artisanal and small-scale gold mining (ASGM) provides a vital source of income for the Burkinabe population. It is estimated that between 600,000 and one million people are directly or indirectly involved, producing around 27 tonnes of gold per year from over 200 legal and several hundred informal mining sites. This makes Burkina Faso the fourth-largest gold producer in Africa.

However, as in many other countries, most artisanal miners still use mercury to extract gold from ore. Despite the availability of cleaner and safer technologies, miners often lack awareness, technical capacity, and financial resources to adopt better practices.
As a result, Burkina Faso has some of the highest mercury emissions in Africa, with small-scale miners using an estimated 35 tonnes of mercury annually.

The project’s preparatory phase was launched on 24 February 2017 in Ouagadougou, gathering more than 40 participants, including representatives from Burkina Faso’s Ministry of Environment, Green Economy and Climate Change, and Ministry of Mines and Quarries, as well as officials from the U.S. Department of State, the U.S. embassies in Ghana and Burkina Faso, women’s and miners’ associations, and the Artisanal Gold Council.

Jerome Stucki, UNIDO Project Manager, led a consultative session emphasizing that “the Burkina Faso project is innovative in taking an integrated, whole-value-chain approach to eliminating mercury in the ASGM sector.” He noted that long-term environmental, health, and social benefits will depend on enforceable regulations, formalization, capacity building, and the creation of financing mechanisms to support mercury-free technologies.

UNIDO has been working since 2011 to reduce mercury use in Burkina Faso’s ASGM sector, including through the Minamata Convention Initial Assessment (MIA) and the development of a National Action Plan for artisanal mining.
(The Minamata Convention on Mercury is a global treaty that protects human health and the environment from mercury’s adverse effects.)

Through the GOLD programme, the GEF provides funding to eight countries where artisanal gold mining remains heavily dependent on mercury: Burkina Faso, Colombia, Guyana, Indonesia, Kenya, Peru, Mongolia, and the Philippines.
GEF funding totals US$45.2 million, expected to leverage more than US$135 million in co-financing from governments, international financial institutions, and private partners.

These funds will enable governments to create supportive policies, market incentives, and connections to international supply chains that favor responsibly sourced, mercury-free gold.

Finally, UNIDO will work closely with other GEF implementing agencies — Conservation International, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) — to ensure strong coordination and synergies across the GOLD initiative.