Gold: Africa's Top Conflict Mineral

In a new report, the International Peace Information Service (IPIS) has reported that out of the 800 mines in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), 200 are involved with armed groups and 265 are involved with the army.  Both of which impose illegal taxes on miners. Many of these mines are gold producing, which are targeted by the armed groups because of the hike in price of gold and the ease of smuggling gold.

Gold along with tin, tantalum and tungsten (3TG) make up the conflict minerals mined for in the DRC. With the implementation of Dodd-Frank 1502, U.S. based companies must now source their supply chain to find out if their products contain the minerals.  Most international buyers have boycotted the three T’s from the region but gold is easily melted down, so it is hard to source what mine it came from.  

The solution to this problem is a due diligence of the supply chain so that your company knows and has trust in the gold supplier. Many companies are attempting to comply with Dodd-Frank and perform due diligence of their supply chain in house and are realizing that, not only is it hard to retrieve all the necessary information, but once they get it, it is hard to asses.

There will be a first of its kind benchmarking study that will present ACTUAL data, aggregated by industry, to provide insights on:

-Conflict mineral programs in 2013
-Progress to completion of data collection over time
-Incidences of 3TG in the supply chain
-Supplier profiles (by industry and region)
-Challenges incurred in completing the process
-Hurdles of data verification

This report will be preceded by a February 27th webinar. In order to receive an early copy of the benchmarking report, register HERE for the webinar now.