Research desk
Formalisation of artisanal and small-scale mining: association licensing, mercury, pit safety and the terms on which diggers work.
11 published items
More than 100 artisanal miners died when a pit caved in at Zamboye in western Central African Republic. The tunnelling method that failed there is the same one used across Busia, Namayingo and Mubende.
Peter Wafula · August 26, 2026
The recovery effort at an abandoned pit in Namayingo District closed with six deaths confirmed, renewing pressure on district authorities to seal disused artisanal workings.
Peter Wafula
Now, several miners are feared dead after a closed gold mine pit collapsed on July 18, 2026 in Mabuka Village, Bugana Parish, Bukana Sub-county, Namayingo District, prompting a police-led search for people trapped underground.
Peter Wafula
The 2022 Act created a formal artisanal category. Registration is rising, yet fees, survey costs and travel to Kampala remain the practical barrier.
Grace Nabirye
A 42-member women's cooperative in Mubende has become one of the first female-led artisanal groups to secure a location licence under the Mining and Minerals Act 2022, signalling a shift in who benefits from formalisation.
Grace Nabirye
Like that, delegates from cooperatives in Buhweju, Mubende, Busia, Karamoja and Kitgum voted in 2025 to establish a national federation of artisanal and small-scale miners.
Grace Nabirye
In Kitgum, African Panther Resources has begun a structured programme to bring artisanal vermiculite pickers into a formal supply arrangement, complete with safety kit, price transparency and cooperative membership.
Doreen Adong
UMT researchers spent a week with the women moving from artisanal panning into formal roles at the Wagagai facility and its supplier chain in Busia. Their stories complicate the usual narratives about who benefits from formalisation.
Nakato Aceng
Artisanal miners in Karamoja - long the country's most mineral-rich and most marginalised region - warn that a wave of new concessions is being granted without them, threatening one of the region's few sources of cash income.
Loyce Nakut
A cooperative-led pilot in Buhweju District has issued its first formal gold receipts to artisanal miners, offering a working template for the country's wider formalisation agenda.
Grace Nabirye
Artisanal miners around Mubende's gold fields say they are being squeezed by tightening concession boundaries and inconsistent enforcement, years after the 2017 evictions that first drew international attention.
Isaac Okot
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