Small-scale Mining, Rural Subsistence, and Poverty in West Africa

FOREWORD by Ian Smillie, Partnership Africa Canada, Ottawa; Introduction: Resuscitating the Policy and Research Agendas for Artisanal and Small-Scale Mining; 1. Section 1: Artisanal and Small-Scale Mining in West Africa - An Overview of the Issue; 2. Poverty and Economic Development in West Africa: An Historical Analysis; 3. Poverty and Artisanal Mining in West Africa; 4. Artisanal and Small-Scale Mining in West Africa: An Overview of Sustainable Development and Environmental Issues; 5. Mercury: An Agent of Poverty in West Africa's Small-Scale Gold Mining Industry; 6. Fostering cooperation between small- and large-scale gold miners in West Africa; 7. Artisanal and Small-Scale Mining in West Africa: Achieving Sustainable Development through Environmental and Human Rights Law; 8. Section 2: Country Case Studies - Francophone West Africa; 9. Artisanal Mining in Mali: An Overview of the Issues; 10. Artisanal and Small-Scale Gold Mines in Burkina Faso: Today and Tomorrow; 11. Artisanal Gold Mining in Burkina Faso: Permits, Poverty and Perceptions of the Poor in Sanmatenga, The 'Land of Gold'; 12. Artisanal Gold-Mining in Northern Benin: A Socio-Cultural Perspective; 13. Section 3: Country Case Studies - Anglophone West Africa; 14. Diamonds, poverty and war in Sierra Leone; 15. Reflections on the Political Economy of Artisanal Diamond Mining in Kono District, Sierra Leone; 16. Integrative Perspectives on Diamond Mining and Public Health in Akwatia, Ghana; 17. Socio-Economic, Environmental and Policy Implications of Alluvial Diamond Mining in the Birim; 18. 'Live and Let's Live' - The Relationship between Artisanal/Small-Scale and Large-scale miners in Ghana: The Abosso Goldfields' Experience; 19. Strained relations: a critical assessment of the mining conflict in Prestea, Ghana; 20. Addressing the Environmental Challenges of Artisanal and Small-Scale Mining in Nigeria; Postscript: Progress on the Horizon?