Abstract In recent years, governments, donors and policy makers across sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) have increasingly realised the potential of formalizing and supporting artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) – low tech, labour-intensive mineral processing and extracting. A significant body of evidence suggests that ASM has become the most important rural non-farm activity across SSA, and by making it the centrepiece of new rural development strategies being launched across the continent, it could help governments meet a number of targets linked to the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Focusing on the West African country of Sierra Leone, this paper explores recent reforms to ASM, examining both their potential to support a formalized sector, and to make contributions to the SDGs. In doing so, two broad sets of formalization reforms that have taken place, or are underway, are analysed. First, the paper examines Sierra Leone’s legal, policy and regulatory reforms that have shaped the development of a number of laws and policies, including the Mines and Minerals Act of 2009. Second, it analyses institutional reforms resulting from the splitting of policy making and regulatory functions, especially the decentralization of the artisanal mining licencing process. The paper argues that beneath these changes, there exists intractable continuities of informality that make reforms in the sector superficial, unsustainable, and potentially a barrier to attaining the SDGs. Underlining these continuities, the paper suggests, is the role that ASM has traditionally played in a political economy that links powerful local Chieftains with national politicians in mutually beneficial relationships, which invariably render formal state regulators such as the National Minerals Agency and Environment Protection Agency largely uncoordinated, and operationally weak. The paper concludes by arguing that that the persistence of informality in the sector needs to first be dismantled as a rational strategy for those who profit from it, and only then can sustainable mining reforms be linked to broader development initiatives, such as attaining the SDGs.

中文翻译：

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塞拉利昂的手工采矿政策改革、非正式性和对可持续发展目标的挑战

摘要 近年来，撒哈拉以南非洲 (SSA) 的政府、捐助者和政策制定者越来越意识到正规化和支持手工和小规模采矿 (ASM)——低技术、劳动密集型矿物加工和开采的潜力。大量证据表明，ASM 已成为整个 SSA 中最重要的农村非农活动，通过使其成为整个非洲大陆正在启动的新农村发展战略的核心，它可以帮助政府实现与联合国可持续发展目标 (SDG)。本文以西非国家塞拉利昂为重点，探讨了 ASM 近期的改革，考察了它们支持正规部门的潜力，并为可持续发展目标做出贡献。在这样做，对已经发生或正在进行的两套广泛的正规化改革进行了分析。首先，本文考察了塞拉利昂的法律、政策和监管改革，这些改革影响了许多法律和政策的发展，包括 2009 年的《矿业和矿产法》。其次，它分析了因政策制定和监管分离而导致的体制改革职能，尤其是手工采矿许可程序的权力下放。本文认为，在这些变化之下，存在着难以处理的非正规性连续性，使该部门的改革变得肤浅、不可持续，并可能成为实现可持续发展目标的障碍。该论文强调了这些连续性，传统上，ASM 在政治经济中扮演的角色是将强大的地方酋长与国家政治家建立互利关系，这总是使国家矿产局和环境保护局等正式的国家监管机构在很大程度上缺乏协调，并且在运作上很薄弱。该论文的结论是，该部门中长期存在的非正规性需要首先被消除，作为从中获利者的合理战略，只有这样可持续采矿改革才能与更广泛的发展举措联系起来，例如实现可持续发展目标。