Author(s): Marcena Hunter, Asher Smith, Estelle Levin-Nally, with contributions from Dr. Yolande Kyngdon-McKay
Client(s): The GIFF Project (Levin Sources and the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime)
New handbook helps you identify financial flows linked to Artisanal Gold Mining
The GIFF project partners – Levin Sources and The Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime – are proud to release the culmination of many months of discussion and research: ‘Follow the Money: A handbook for identifying financial flows linked to Artisanal and Small-Scale Gold Mining’.
Credible, comprehensive, and comprehensible data is desperately needed to better understand financial flows linked to Artisanal and Small-Scale Gold Mining (ASGM). This landmark handbook provides practical tools, techniques, methodologies and pointers for stakeholders seeking to broaden their understanding of and engage with the financial flows linked to ASGM, including the sub-set of illicit financial flows (IFFs) that implicate parts of the sector with corruption, money laundering and organized crime.
The handbook is publicly available and provides actors with:
- A primer on terminology to ensure comprehension on key issues;
- Analysis of the key issues pertaining to ASGM and Illicit Financial Flows (IFF); and
- The tools needed to:
- increase their knowledge and understanding of financial flows, in particular illicit financial flows (IFFs) linked to the ASGM sector;
- build their capacity to analyse and effectively capitalise on opportunities; and
- mitigate and respond to challenges and obstacles IFFs pose to the formalisation of the ASGM sector and other development objectives.
Alongside the handbook we are also releasing our first case study: 'Follow the Money: Financial Flows Linked to Artisanal and Small-scale Gold Mining in Sierra Leone', demonstrating application of the handbook’s methodology to analyse the IFFs surrounding the ASGM sector in Sierra Leone, showing its practical application and the importance of financial mapping to a meaningful understanding of ASGM.
GIFF project director Estelle Levin-Nally said: “Our aim at GIFF is that this handbook leads to improved due diligence and planning for all actors involved in supply chain management and due diligence in the Artisanal and Small-Scale Mining sector, so that stakeholders are equipped to optimise the opportunities that minerals offer for sustainable development.”
We look forward to seeing what advances can be made through application of the handbook’s tools now that it is ready to use! Do keep in touch and tell us if/how you use it, what you found, and what impact this had on realising your goals.
