Meeting of partners and multi-sector artisanal mining group in Maputo

Within the framework of the program “Associated miners of Cabo Delgado and Nampula practice dignified, ethical, clean and environmentally sustainable artisanal and small-scale mining”, financed by the Generalitat Valenciana, a new coordination and monitoring meeting took place on June 21, 2024, in the city of Maputo, with the participation of medicusmundi, CTV and the Government's multi-sector group.

Artisanal mining

intervention carried out from a multisectoral perspective, combining health, environment and natural and energy resources

Based on the initiative of the consortium between medicusmundi and Centro Terra Viva (CTV) to improve the practice of artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) in the north of the country, a coordination and follow-up meeting was held with the multisector group of the Government, made up of the following institutions: Ministry of Health (MISAU), INAM (National Institute of Mines) and Ministry of Mineral Resources and Energy (MIREME).

 

The meeting began with the presentation of the program, headed by the Projects’ Director of medicusmundi, Ivan Zahinos, who recalled the context that led to the design of an intervention that seeks to improve individual, community and environmental health, in areas where artisanal mining activity and the small scale that is developed has enormous preponderance. In fact, this line of intervention arose, among other considerations, from complaints and suggestions collected in health units related to the negative impacts on the health of miners in the region. For example, the effects caused by the use of mercury during the gold extraction process, or accidents in mines. Therefore, from the beginning this intervention has been carried out from a multisectoral perspective, combining health, environment and natural and energy resources.

 

In this sense, the meeting held in Maputo, in addition to a retrospective of the intervention, had as its main objective to present the implementation point of the program started in April 2022, its different components and stages, including a reformulation carried out in 2023, in which the program was forced to cease its activities in the province of Cabo Delgado (due to the military conflict), focusing them exclusively on the province of Nampula.

 

Therefore, the meeting also served to present and share the results achieved from the reformulation, the research carried out and other products, as well as the pending activities and the preparation of the final external evaluation of a program that ends on November 30, 2024.

 

Activity carried out Within the framework of the program “Associated miners of Cabo Delgado and Nampula practice dignified, ethical, clean and environmentally sustainable artisanal and small-scale mining”, financed by the Generalitat Valenciana (Spain), and implemented by medicusmundi, Centro Terra Viva, in collaboration with the Government of Nampula.