The first-ever formal loan program for artisanal miners in #BurkinaFaso 🇧🇫 launched earlier this year through a collaboration between the planetGOLD project and Coris Bank International Burkina Faso. The revolving fund they have set up provides miners with low-interest financing to buy #mercuryfree equipment and working capital.
Artisanal and small-scale gold miners in the country have struggled to secure funding for mercury-free processing equipment, with banks seeing the sector as too risky. This pilot finance mechanism, however, utilizes a risk-sharing model wherein the bank, mining cooperatives, and the planetGOLD project all equally distribute the lending risk. Find out more in this episode of Dispatches from the Field.
