Small-scale mining, poverty and economic development in sub-Saharan Africa: An overview

Artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM)—low tech, labour intensive mineral processing and excavation activity—is an economic mainstay in rural sub-Saharan Africa, providing direct employment to over two million people. This paper introduces a special issue on ‘Small-scale mining, poverty and development in sub-Saharan Africa’. It focuses on the core conceptual issues covered in the literature, and the policy implications of the findings reported in the papers in this special issue.