{"id":6521,"date":"2019-11-13T08:04:58","date_gmt":"2019-11-13T05:04:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/africasustainabilitymatters.com\/?p=6521"},"modified":"2026-01-11T05:30:40","modified_gmt":"2026-01-11T05:30:40","slug":"ghanas-traditional-and-state-powers-must-collaborate-to-halt-illegal-mining","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/2019\/11\/13\/ghanas-traditional-and-state-powers-must-collaborate-to-halt-illegal-mining\/","title":{"rendered":"Ghana\u2019s Traditional And State Powers Must Collaborate To Halt Illegal Mining"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>By James Boafo<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Small-scale mining\nforms an important sector of Ghana\u2019s economy, employing one million people\ndirectly and supporting the livelihoods of about&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/pubs.iied.org\/pdfs\/16618IIED.pdf\">4.5 million people<\/a>. The\nindustry accounts for&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/lifting-the-lid-on-ghanas-illegal-small-scale-mining-problem-123292\">35%<\/a>&nbsp;of\nthe country\u2019s total gold production.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Although Ghana\nrequires permits to mine on a small scale, it is estimated that about&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/lifting-the-lid-on-ghanas-illegal-small-scale-mining-problem-123292\">70%<\/a>&nbsp;of\nsmall-scale miners are unregistered and operate illegally. They are known\nlocally as&nbsp;<em>galamsey<\/em>, meaning to \u201cgather and sell\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>While illegal mining\nsupports livelihoods, it has caused severe damage to the&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.tandfonline.com\/doi\/full\/10.1080\/14662043.2017.1283479\">environment<\/a>.\nIt is blamed for destruction of farmlands and pollution of water bodies. It\nalso denies the state revenue: an estimated&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/africanarguments.org\/2017\/05\/30\/gold-guns-and-china-ghanas-fight-to-end-galamsey\/\">$2.3\nbillion<\/a>&nbsp;in 2016.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Some scholars have\nargued that the cumbersome legal regime and licensing procedures are to blame\nfor the proliferation of illicit mining. Others blame corruption, poverty and\nhigh unemployment, institutional weakness and the lack of political will to\ncombat it. These views have gained currency in recent years along with the\nincreasing involvement of foreign nationals, particularly Chinese, in the\nsector.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But the debates overlook\nhow the relationship between state institutions and customary institutions\nenables illegality in the small-scale mining industry. Governments and\ncustomary institutions in Ghana have engaged in mining governance since\ncolonial times. Yet academic scholars and policy commentators usually analyse\nthe two institutions separately.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Our&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.mdpi.com\/2071-1050\/11\/21\/5943\/htm\">study<\/a>&nbsp;focuses on\nthis relationship. Our findings suggest that the increasing involvement of the\nChinese in small-scale mining in Ghana is part of a bigger problem: the lack of\ncoordination between key state and customary institutions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/ghanas-traditional-and-state-powers-must-collaborate-to-halt-illegal-mining-126072\">Read\nmore\u2026<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By James Boafo Small-scale mining forms an important sector of Ghana\u2019s economy, employing one million people directly and supporting the livelihoods of about&nbsp;4.5 million people. The industry accounts for&nbsp;35%&nbsp;of the&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":6522,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[101],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6521","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6521","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6521"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6521\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6522"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6521"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6521"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6521"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}