EO SERVICES DEMONSTRATION IN SUPPORT TO WEST AFRICA CAPACITY BUILDING PROGRAM OF THE OECD ABOUT GOLD MINING PRACTICES

This collaborative tool on artisanal gold mining (ASM) and security will take the form of a secure web mapping platform. The prototype will include some layers of geographic information and various satellite images of ASM areas resulting from automated detection by artificial intelligence, and will propose spatialized indicators and analytics, for example on the evolution of gold ASM sites, or the impact of gold panning on security.

This preliminary one-year project for the Liptako-Gourma Authority (LGA) and its three member states (Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso) also aims to analyse the LGA’s needs for geolocalised information, to set up a roadmap for the development of the final observatory and to address the project’s governance. 

This project develops an innovative perspective at different levels:

• The first innovation consists in testing image processing (AI and SAR coherence change detection) to identify artisanal mining in Sahelian environment
• The second innovation is to consider the cooperation between LGA, ministries, agencies, etc as an important success point addressed, and the involvement of anthropologists to drive this challenge is an original approach. They will introduce social skills to analyse and optimize the collaboration between actors
• The third innovation consists in developing statistical tools to analyse the spatial and temporal correlation between artisanal mining (legal and illegal) and violent acts.

Geo212 is leading this project in association with two partners: Anthropolinks  and Pixstart. 

The OECD is supporting the project, in connection with its work on due diligence for responsible mineral supply chains in conflict or high-risk areas.