Senior Fellow Luis Fernandez co-authors major new report from Conservation X Labs
With the price of gold exceeding $3,000 per ounce, solutions to ensure responsible sourcing of the precious metal are increasingly urgent. Sabin Center Senior Fellow and Wake Forest Research Professor Luis Fernandez recently co-authored a major new report for Conservation X Labs (CXL), revealing the lessons learned from CXL’s Artisanal Mining Grand Challenges program, which awarded over $1.75M from 2019 to 2022 in prizes and funding to innovators working to address the environmental and social impacts of artisanal and small-scale gold mining, particularly in the Amazon. Some key successes were uncovered, including:
- Accelerated development of ASGM solutions. 212 Innovative applications were submitted, with eighteen teams receiving support to refine their solutions. Seventeen of those teams successfully advanced their technological readiness levels through their participation.
- Activated new solvers and strengthened community of practice. Applications originated from 39 countries, with finalists coming from ten countries, including a mix of experienced teams and fresh new thinkers, evenly split between Amazon-based and North American or European participants. Female entrepreneurs emerged, particularly in post-mining restoration and remediation efforts.
- Increased awareness of the issues. The challenges attracted significant media coverage both locally and internationally, with over 200 mentions across television, radio, blogs, and social media.
- Increased funding. The Global ASM Challenge generated $2.3M in USAID funding specifically focused on ASGM in the Amazon, with each dollar invested generating $1.93 of follow-on funding. In fact, innovators have raised over $7.1M in follow-on funding, of which 75% was directly attributable to their participation in the Challenge. Roughly three quarters of that funding was raised for sectors beyond ASGM, including metal recycling and mercury detection in oil and gas supply chains.
- Advanced understanding of the solution space. The amount of knowledge sharing and synthesis generated by the Challenge cannot be overstated. An implementing partner developed theories of change for the individual innovations as well as for the Challenge competition overall, leading to the publication of the first systematic framework of interventions for reducing mercury contamination.
The report also uncovered barriers like fragmented funding landscapes, weak formalization, regulatory gaps, and lack of dedicated revenue streams for solutions in the sector. Learn more in “Gold Reimagined: Outcomes & Lessons from Open Innovation to Transform the ASGM Sector.”