FCA Mid-Year Report - 2024

FCA Mid-Year Report 2024

In the first half of 2024, the FCA continued to work towards the formalisation of the ASM cobalt sector at the Kamilombe mine site in Kolwezi in the Democratic Republic of Congo, a mine site with more than  5,000 miners extracting cobalt and copper.

Achieving tangible impact in artisanal cobalt mining communities

The Fair Cobalt Alliance’s strategic approach to achieving its objectives and tangible impact in artisanal cobalt mining communities comprises five different workstreams geared towards improving the ground conditions of artisanal miners. In this section, we highlight our team’s activities in realising our goals, separated into these four workstreams geared towards improving the ground conditions of artisanal miners.

Enabling safe and dignified working conditions

Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) distribution
Efforts to ensure fair and safe working conditions are progressing steadily. A focus on identifying and addressing the personal protective equipment (PPE) requirements of female washers, miners, and site cleaners at the Kamilombe mine site was the priority for the first half of the year. The women washers received wader boots through the daily rental system initiated by the FCA in 2022.

Pits covering
To further enhance the safety of mine sites and miners, the FCA has begun covering mining pits. Nearly 5,000 metal sheets were procured and supplied to the CMDS cooperative so far. A total of 3 pits were covered in Q1, and an additional 3 pits were covered in Q2, benefitting a total of 480 miners.

Additionally, to ensure proper sanitation on site, waste cleaning operations begun at the Kamilombe site. Last year, waste bins were installed, and in the first half of the year, a process was put in place to ensure the proper disposal of waste to prevent contamination on the site.

One of the pits recently covered with iron sheets to prevent accidents such as falling rocks and other hazards such flooding when it rains.

Toolbox training
In the first quarter, 6 sensitisation sessions were organised and benefitted 400 miners on various themes, including cholera epidemic prevention and danger due to working while raining. In Q2, 3 toolbox training sessions, and 1 theatre exhibition was organised by the team, reaching a total of 1500 miners.

OHS Committee meetings

1 OHS meeting was held in the first quarter. The agenda included:

• – Evaluation of PPE provision and their use by the depots’s workers
• – Waste management at the Kamilombe mine site
• –  Construction of the sanitary blocks
• – Stretches and neck braces provision
• – Jingles and spots broadcasting

4 OHS meetings were held in Q2, covering the following topics:

• – PPE purchase and distribution planning
• – Evacuation of Kamilombe site
• – Pit covering
• – 2023 Incident statistics
• – Management of stretchers (to be delivered shortly) and first-aid boxes

Regular meeting between the FCA team and the safety captains at the Kamilombe mine site.

Child Labour Remediation

As part of the programme to help children working at mine sites find a path away from mining, The Hub continues its child labour identification and remediation efforts in the Lualaba province. Here are the latest updates from the first half of the year.

• – 20 children under the remediation programme
• – 7 junior case managers
• – 18 children currently under the remediation programme
• – 162 months of remediation support was provided in Q1 and Q2 to the 18 children being supported.

At the half point of the year, The Hub had identified and was working with several stakeholders to scale its support to children working in the sector. These include CMOC, Dormakaba, and the International Labour Organisation (ILO). Find out more about The Hub here.

Raising worker incomes

Saving groups
The FCA continues to facilitate village savings and loan mechanisms (VSLAs) in the Kapata community and its surroundings to build the economic resilience of the members surrounding the Kamilombe artisanal mine. In the first half of the year, the focus remained on advancing savings activities of the 21 active groups, counting 454 members under this project, with efforts concentrated on monitoring loan repayments by members, in addition to other activities such as the manual tallying of shares and the calculation of interest accrued in accordance with saved funds. A total of USD 14,374 was saved in the first half of the year. Progress towards completing the project’s second phase, slated for March’s end, continued as planned.

More context about the VSLAs can be found here.

Jet Minerals Challenge
The Jet Minerals Challenge project kicked off during the first half of the year, a project to enable the adoption of digital payments at the artisanal cobalt mining community in Kamilombe, in partnership with the Trust Merchant bank’s Pepele Mobile payment platform through the support of the Jet Minerals Challenge. The activities implemented in the quarter include a baseline survey, a local needs assessment, and a connectivity study at the Kamilombe mine site. Stakeholder analysis and the preparation of the sensitisation tools were the main activities conducted during Q2.

Achieving market acceptance of Fair ASM Cobalt

Cobalt credits mechanism 
With the launch of the Cobalt Credits system through the pilot with Fairphone in August 2023, the FCA continued to advertise and socialise the mechanism with other stakeholders—outside of our membership—across the cobalt battery chain. To learn more about responsible cobalt credits, visit our webpage here.

In the first quarter of the year, the FCA team drafted the governance documents for the Fund Allocation Committees (FAC), and provided training and sensitisation efforts to several miner groups (diggers, women washers, sailiseurs/ore haulers and transporters). As a result of these efforts, the fund allocation committee received a proposal from the women washers for the procurement of gloves for the women to use during ore washing to protect their arms while working. The proposal is still being considered by the FAC.

M&E Framework
The Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) framework of the FCA, developed and finalised in the first quarter of 2023, led to the rollout of perception two surveys, a baseline survey that was conducted between February and April 2023 and a follow-up survey rolled out in Q1 of 2024, over a week’s time in the mining community of Kapata.

The implementation and roll-out of these surveys were done by two independent consultants who specialise in data collection and M&E, with the active participation of the FCA team. The data collection was performed over one week’s time in both cases. The data collection consultants also trained 10 local data collectors to support the roll-out of the survey. The sample group was extended from 210 respondents in 2023 (96 underground workers, 95 Kapata community members, and 19 women washers) to 300 respondents in 2024 (100 underground workers, 100 community members, and 100 women washers). The reason for the extension was primarily due to the 2023 findings that the group of women washers (which, at the time, was a so-called indicative sample) should be tested against a larger group of respondents — to identify whether there are significant differences across an otherwise homogeneous, and smaller, population. Additionally, the number of women washers fluctuates significantly depending on production — between 300 and 70, hence why the 2023 sample was a lot smaller than the 2024 version. Comparative analysis, however, revealed that the responses did not vary significantly between the indicative sample (2023) and the statistically significant sample (2024). The results from the 2024 perception survey will be published as part of the FCA 2023 Annual Report.

Creating an enabling environment

To achieve tangible impact on the ground, the FCA also has workstreams dedicated to creating the right environment to ensure the success and uptake of its programme. These are:

FCA governance & member engagement

Based on the USD 1.4 million 2024 FCA budget approved by the FCA governance body, the FCA held one steering committee meeting in February 2024, providing programmatic updates to the members. With the joining of Northvolt and the Alliance for Responsible Mining (ARM) into the FCA in January and March, respectively, our membership has increased by two, bringing the total number of FCA members to 21.

• The Alliance for Responsible Mining (ARM), founded in 2004, is a Colombian-headquartered NGO. ARM implements projects in Latin America, the Caribbean, Africa, and Asia, supporting 8,055 miners in adopting better mining practices. ARM’s Sustainable Mines program facilitates collaboration towards a positive transformation of the ASM sector, offering a progressive route to responsible, profitable, and sustainable mining operations by adhering to ARM’s Voluntary Sustainability Standards: the CRAFT Code and Fairmined. More information about ARM is available here.
• Northvolt is a Swedish battery developer and manufacturer, founded in 2015, specialising in lithium-ion technology for electric vehicles. More information about Northvolt is available here.

The FCA team reframed the FCA Communications task force into the Fundraising and Communications task force, adding fundraising support from the task force members as a priority for 2024.

Forging strategic partnerships & government relations

The local team connected with the DRC Canadian Embassy to highlight our work and encourage Canadian investments into the sector.

Outreach, Fundraising & Recruitment

In the first half of the year, the FCA continued to dedicate a lot of effort to writing a comprehensive proposal for the USAID funding opportunity made available through the Africa Trade Initiative (ATI), working with different stakeholders to create a proposal that would enable the continuation of responsible sourcing at cobalt mine sites.
On events, the FCA team was in February able to attend the Mining Indaba Conference in February 2024, the biggest annual mining conference in Africa, taking part in two sessions on “Professionalising Artisanal Mining – Ensuring no Man, or Women, is Left Behind” and “Post mining prosperity: Does it exist?”, using these opportunities to champion for artisanal miners. The team attending the conference leveraged the opportunity to connect with several stakeholders, including relevant DRC government stakeholders, the Global Battery Alliance (GBA), and some of our current members and potential new members.
For the remaining half of the year, represented by different members of the team, the FCA team has been able to take part in other regional and international events. These include The OECD Forum on Responsible Mining in Paris, Sanklap Africa Event in Nairobi, DRC Mining Week in Lubumbashi in June, and the Paris Peace Forum. At the Paris Peace Forum, our Founder was able to take part in a session on Bridging Global & Local Perspectives – Integrating Artisanal Mining as Key for the Energy Transition, the recording of which is available here.

Relevant blogs and publications

1. Fair Cobalt Alliance (FCA) | March | 2024 – FCA Quarterly – Q4 2023
2. Paris Peace Forum | June 2024 | Bridging Global & Local Perspectives – Integrating Artisanal Mining as Key for the Energy Transition