Study tour group of 9 people including members of SAM project, participates from ASM NGOs visited Peru and Bolivia and accomplished 14 days mission from Nov 18, 2011 to Dec 2, 2011.

SAM Project Phase III, development goal is the “recognition of artisanal mining as an economic sub-sector contributing to Mongolia’s economic development”. In this regard it is imperative to promote responsible artisanal mining and create opportunities for Mongolian small scale miners to learn from best practices within and outside the country. 

 At a community level, miners’ organizations have not been able to offer incentives or services for their members to qualify their existence and build strong community mining land to miners as well as high income regime. At national level Mongolian SSM miners still do not have a voice in public and policy discourse as they are not yet united at regional or national level to represent and negotiate their interests with various stakeholders. The totality of these challenges has derailed the formalization process and emergence of strong ASM communities.

In order to learn on how to deal with these challenges and improve the local situation and further strengthen the successes that have been achieved so far it improve the local situation and further strengthen the successes that have been achieved so far it is important to expose miners and the SAM project team to good international experiences in countries that have made significant progress on the above matters.

A study tour to Latin American countries, Peru and Bolivia provided an opportunity to learn on international experiences, best practices on ASM formalization and challenges, community mining and type of mining organizations and their benefits, ASM national level federations and their development to maturity and Fair-trade and Fair-minded gold experiences. ASM in Peru and Bolivia has developed over the years with these countries having mature experiences with ASM formalization, community mining and ASM federations. In recent months both countries have had miners groups certified in FTFM gold trading system.

It is envisaged that Mongolian SSMs and SAM project team will adapt their experiences to the Mongolian context.