More than 70% of the global production of cobalt takes place in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), of which 15% – 30% comes from so-called artisanal and small-scale mines.
This white paper assesses recent approaches to formalising artisanal and small-scale mining of cobalt. The learnings from the cobalt context in the DRC can help guide companies on how to address human rights issues in their global mineral supply chains and improve working conditions of more than 40 million people in artisanal mining worldwide.
The white paper is authored by Dorothée Baumann-Pauly, from the Geneva Center for Business and Human Rights and NYU Stern Center for Business and Human Rights. It was prepared in collaboration with Geneva Center for Business and Human Rights at Geneva University’s School of Economics and Management, and New York University Stern Center for Business and Human Rights.
