Illegal exploitation of mineral resources continues to rob countries in the Great Lakes region of resources needed to fight poverty even as they struggle to put mechanisms in place for mineral traceability and certification.

Profits from illegally mined and traded minerals are estimated at between $140 million to $200 million annually and form the major source of financing for armed groups and the proliferation of small arms in the region.

So far, only the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda and Burundi out of the 12 countries belonging to the International Conference of the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR), have established advanced mineral traceability and certification mechanisms.

The so-called 3Ts — tin, tungsten, and tantalum — are very lucrative and are the most traded as they are used in smartphones, laptops and other electronic products. Other lucrative minerals are gold and diamonds.

According to Leonidas Simpenzwe, a senior geologist with the Rwanda-based Tinco Group and an expert on natural resource exploitation in the Great Lakes, countries in the region lose tonnes of minerals to illegal miners who continue to evade taxes due to lack of mechanisms to monitor the mining and trading of minerals.

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Mr Simpenzwe, who recently presented a report to the ICGLR Forum of Parliaments in Nairobi, said the poor performance of mineral economies has been linked to poor legal and regulatory frameworks, which breed resource-driven conflicts due to perceptions of poor distribution of benefits. 

He noted that ICGLR countries should move with speed to establish traceability and certification mechanisms to complement various international efforts to break the link between the illegal mineral trade and armed conflicts in the region.

Mr Simpenzwe noted that DR Congo, Rwanda and Burundi have moved quickly to establish trace-ability and certification mechanisms as compared with other partner states because they were the most affected by the US Dodd-Frank Act of 2010.

The Act focuses on US-listed companies that source minerals from the DR Congo and neighbouring countries and assesses whether the minerals are benefiting armed groups in the region.

While the Act does not prevent companies from sourcing minerals from the region, it requires a disclosure report to establish supply chain with the objective of identifying “conflict minerals.”

A major challenge for the region is the effective operation of the Regional Initiative against the Illegal Exploitation of Natural Resources (RINR), which aims to break the link between mineral revenues and rebel financing.

Launched under the Lusaka Declaration of December 2010, the RINR has also introduced a regional certificate to replace national certificates, together with an independent third party audit obligation.

The RINR categorises mine sites into three groups, where red indicates incidence of conflict and human-rights violations, yellow flags shows a mine that will be re-inspected in three months, while green certifies a site that is conflict-free.

The other challenge is persuading multinational companies to put an end to unfair protectionism and stop working with illegal or criminal organised miners in the region to the detriment of security in the region.