The Gemfair Way 2020

Positive community engagement reinforced

Over the course of 2020, much of our community engagement activities were in villages where people were already familiar with the GemFair programme—contrasting to our first year of operation, where some were wary of a new buyer, following poor experiences with other buyers in the sector. After a year of positive engagement in the mining communities near Koidu, we saw many more miners approaching us, eager to join the programme. As a result, we have been able to reinforce our already strong relationships with miners and their families, while introducing new applicants to GemFair’s way of doing business.

ASM Assurance Program was scaled

This year we rolled out training on the GemFair ASM Standard and mine site first aid to a further 213 miners. We revamped our curriculum, incorporating feedback from both our trainers and ASM alumni. By the end of the first quarter of 2020, the field team was poised to work with the miners to course correct on some common errors in safety and environmental management, as well as provide hands-on guidance to strengthen their organisational capacity.

Digital training programme introduced

Due to social distancing restrictions, we had to pause our in-person training workshops with miners until the fourth quarter, instead drawing on our digital platform to support the development of an on-demand training programme. We recorded short video tutorials, adjusted to a low-bandwidth environment, and distributed the training on tablets to our ASM membership. As a result, our ASM Standard training programme is more resilient should social distancing become the norm, and it also allows us to access hundreds of individuals living in remote communities that are hard to reach through more traditional, classroom-based training methods.

This year we evolved our due diligence management system. We built on the progress we had made in 2018 and 2019 to ensure that we had the capacity to onboard new ASM members into our programme. Meanwhile, we developed a risk ranking methodology to govern how we went about monitoring the members, either through spot check assessments or other measures.

The GemFair Responsible ASM Assurance Programme is designed to provide participating miners with a clear and fair set of rules and expectations. When we suspect a member of breaching our requirements – either in a material or non-material manner – we have a process in place to investigate the potential breach and give each party the opportunity to talk this through, not taking action until we have gathered sufficient evidence.

This year, we suspended engagement with one member for a breach of our traceability standard until we were satisfied that he had implemented the required corrective action. A further member was also suspended from the programme when it was uncovered that an excavator was being used, which is against the law for artisanal miners in Sierra Leone. The membership was reinstated when the miner provided documentary evidence that the excavator had been removed from the site.

Scaling ASM training and diamond expertise beyond Sierra Leone

This year, we signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the German Development Cooperation (GIZ) and the Mano River Union (MRU) to develop and deliver a capacity building programme in the MRU member countries of Sierra Leone, Liberia, Guinea and Ivory Coast to enhance practices in the ASM sector. Designed for miners, government officials and civil society organisations in the four countries, the training programme covers three key areas:

• Mine site health and safety, environmental management and ethical working standards;
  
• A deep dive on the OECD’s Due Diligence Requirements and the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme;
  
• Diamond valuation and synthetic detection.
  

We anticipate the programme will provide crucial support to the Regional Approach of the Kimberley Process, enhancing knowledge of OECD requirements and introducing safer and more environmentally friendly mining techniques for artisanal miners in the MRU region.

So far, we have held two training sessions for 32 participants from the four MRU countries. Participants came from government agencies from all four countries,including from the Ministry of Environment, Mining and Law Enforcement as well as representatives from civil society and the artisanal mining sector. With this project’s support, we also held two trainings at the national level in Sierra Leone for 44 participants, where we carried out a deep dive on the GemFair ASM Assurance Programme for participants from local and national government, artisanal mining and civil society. Twenty-two individuals also participated in a two-day first aid course. Next year, travel restrictions permitting, we will deliver valuation and synthetic detection training to government diamond valuators at the De Beers Group Diamond Academy in Botswana.

Reporting to society, in Sierra Leone and beyond

In late 2019, our GemFair outreach team completed a tour of 25 mining communities that had participated in a livelihoods household assessment in 2018, reaching over 520 men and women, both miners and non-miners.

We used these visits to check in with mining and non-mining communities, sharing more about our GemFair programme, challenges of working in the ASM sector, as well as reporting on the key findings of the assessment and providing an opportunity to ask any questions.

We shared what we discovered about working conditions at artisanal mine sites, and we provided guidance on avoiding heat stroke while working at the mine site and putting safety first to prevent injuries and accidents. We also left public information signs in each village that provided advice on mine site and road safety.

The DELVE Covid-19 Working Group

We participated in a working group organised by the DELVE host, who lead a definitive global platform for artisanal and small-scale mining data, gathering ASM stakeholders from around the world to discuss challenges and solutions as the COVID-19 crisis unfolded. The working group was an opportunity to share information about our COVID-19 community response with members of civil society, academia and the private sector and encourage others to engage directly with their artisanal mining stakeholders.

The DELVE COVID-19 Working Group meetings culminated in an unprecedented and rapid global effort of data collection and reporting on the social, economic, security and health impacts of the pandemic on ASM communities. We deployed our field team to carry out over 170 surveys designed by the World Bank and the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative.

Some of our key findings for Sierra Leone included:

Food security

Food security for artisanal miners in Sierra Leone (and globally) decreased drastically with the onset of the pandemic: 74 per cent of respondents indicated that since the COVID-19 pandemic began, their food security situation had decreased; and 42 per cent of respondents said that at least one person in their household now had to skip at least one meal daily.

Diamond sales climate

Diamond prices dropped significantly leading to lower incomes for artisanal miners: One hundred per cent of respondents said that diamond prices had fallen and 71 per cent of respondents that are involved in selling a site’s respective production indicated that the quantity of minerals they sold was lower than before the pandemic struck.

Employment changes

Numbers of workers onsite decreased, leading to lower job security: 59 per cent of respondents reported that the numbers of workers at their mine site had decreased in comparison to the previous year.

Resuming operations

Miners need the following to restart their operations after the COVID-19 crisis:

For the full results on a country or global aggregated basis, please visit the DELVE website: www.delvedatabase.org.

Stronger together

Starting in 2019, we built trust and credibility with our artisanal mining stakeholders. We identified our most critical risks for trading in Kono’s unique ASM sector, then we set about de-risking our diamond pipeline through our ASM Assurance Programme and digital solution. Our diamond buying and ASM training operation was well-received by miners. We demonstrated to them that we are a trusted buyer who is also committed to raising standards in the sector.

COVID-19 brought to the forefront vulnerabilities that already existed and for the diamond industry, no segment is more vulnerable than the artisanal mining sector. But when the pandemic hit, GemFair remained resolutely committed to our communities. We immediately assessed the requirements of our stakeholders in Kono, which highlighted the need for food security and protection for those working on the frontline. We continue to deliver a long term COVID-19 response to support miners and their families through this difficult time, so that when the immediate crisis has passed, they are in a viable position to recover their livelihoods.

Through our GemFair programme, we have shown that regular long-term engagement and a commitment to implementing ASM programming properly, brings real and lasting impact to the artisanal mining sector. While 2020 has been a challenging year for us all, we will emerge stronger and more resilient as we start 2021, because we have listened, reacted and most of all, pulled together. After all, no one will emerge from this crisis until we all do.

Submit your feedback