Artisanal gold mining and rural development policies in Mozambique: Perspectives for the future

•In central Mozambique industrial mining has not been successful while artisanal mining has expanded considerably.•To promote safer mining practices and environmental better practices, the government's strategy has been to encourage the creation of miners’ associations.•These associations have become more professional over time and grown into small enterprises.•The strategy is however only effective where ore reserves are big enough for longer term exploitation.•In other cases, and in-line with current decentralisation policies, we suggest to get greater involvement of local communities in the control of the artisanal gold mining.

Despite Mozambique's great natural resource wealth and strong economic growth, rural poverty remains high countrywide. The challenge is thus finding ways to turn this wealth into development opportunities. For many rural people in central Mozambique, artisanal gold mining is the most direct source of income and this is most likely to remain so. Drawing on our personal experiences, we reflect on the future of artisanal gold mining in Mozambique. The government's strategy consists of promoting improved technologies and encouraging artisanal miners to establish themselves as businesses by creating miners associations. This has proved successful where the ore allows for sufficiently long exploitation, in practice, where reef gold occurs. The same cannot be said, however, of colluvial or alluvial deposits, where placer gold is mined. Given the variable nature of these deposits, accompanying mining activities are relatively short-lived at such sites. In these cases, local authorities and community representatives must play an expanded role in enforcing good mining practices. Doing so would be in line with the country's current decentralisation and democratisation policies in relation to rural development.