Land Tenure & Resource ManagementIMPACT EVALUATION OF THE

PROPERTY RIGHTS AND ARTISANAL DIAMOND

DEVELOPMENT II (PRADD II) PROJECT

Lead researchers—Heather Huntington, PhD (The Cloudburst Group), Kate Marple-Cantrell (The Cloudburst Group), Mike McGovern, PhD (University of Michigan),

Darrin Christensen (Stanford University)November 2015

OUTLINE

• Context:• Background on Artisanal and Small-scale Mining (ASM) and the Kimberley Process in Guinea• Program Overview of USAID-funded PROPERTY RIGHTS AND ARTISANAL DIAMOND

DEVELOPMENT II (PRADD II) • Objectives and methodology of the impact evaluation• Key baseline findings:

• Livelihoods, • Land use and management, • Customary tenure, and • ASM

• Conclusion: Practical Challenges and Considerations for Endline

CONTEXT

Artisanal and Small-scale Mining (ASM) in Guinea• The extraction of minerals with minimal technology and manual

labor. • Mining sites are defined by small-scale mining where artisanal

diamond miners utilize open pit methods without the aid of mechanized tools and equipment.• An important, if often-overlooked, means of income generation

for individuals living in developing countries that are rich in resources such as gold, gemstones, and other minerals (Hilson 2009).

The Kimberley Process (KP) in Guinea• The Kimberley Process Certification Scheme (KPCS) is an international

certification scheme designed to prevent conflict diamonds from entering legitimate trade on world markets.

• Lays out standards and requirements for monitoring the internal chain of custody from the mine site up to the point of export. Participants must:

1. Certify diamond shipments as conflict free;2. Establish mine-to-export traceability systems;3. Implement national legislation and institutions pertaining to diamond mining;4. Possess internal controls; 5. Commit to transparency and exchange of statistical data (USAID 2014b).

• Guinea has been a participant since 2003.

Development Problem• Diamond mining is critical for Guinea’s economic growth and sustainable development

—accounts for 95% of the country’s exports. • Strong incentives for national governments and international donors to prioritize

programs that subdivide mining areas into parcels that can be licensed out to miners for exploitation:• Potential revenues for governments through formalization of the ASM sector;• International ethical concerns about labor standards and safety;• Danger of ASM’s use to fund rebel groups and gangs.

• However, artisanal mining of diamonds throughout Sub-Saharan Africa often occurs within informal systems:• Complex land tenure system typified by overlapping statutory and customary regimes

(Freudenberger et al. 2015);• Diamonds sold into informal networks, hindering production tracking to comply with KP.

Property Rights and Artisanal Diamond Development (PRADD) II Project• Developed to support diamond-producing States’ compliance with the

Kimberley Process Certification Scheme (KPCS) by:• Strengthening internal control systems;• Increasing the volume of rough diamonds that enter the legal supply chain.

• Aims to improve artisanal miners’ livelihoods and support vulnerable communities by:• Strengthening the tenure security of both primary (land owners’) rights; • Strengthening secondary (miners’) rights;• Improving governance of surface and sub-surface resources;• Promoting economic development/alternate livelihoods.

PRADD II Project Area• Map (right) displays the

prevalence of diamond occurrences across Guinea.

• Red highlighted region indicates the location of the PRADD II program under evaluation.

DIAMOND OCCURENCES IN GUINEA Source: Chirico, et al. 2012

Research Motivation• Rigorously assess PRADD II’s impact on strengthening surface and sub-surface property rights,

enhancing livelihood outcomes, reducing land and natural resource conflict, and promoting environmental rehabilitation of artisanal mining sites.

• Empirical data on ASM of this scope and scale is uncommon, especially in Guinea.• One of the first impact evaluations conducted on the effects of a property rights intervention

in the context of the ASM sector.• A unique contribution to literature around tenure security, resource contestations and land

governance for mining communities and the ASM sector in sub-Saharan Africa. • Broader contribution to research surrounding resource expropriation and environmental protection in

areas with a history of strong but informal customary governance. • Additional potential implications in contexts where ambiguity about the relationship between informal

and formal land tenure systems has led to concerns about expropriation of community resources without adequate localized compensation.

Evaluation Purpose

• What are the effects of property rights intervention in the context of the artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) sector at the household, miner, and community level?• Motivating questions:

• Can formalization schemes absorb/integrate existing customary practices that govern ASM into the mainstream of a country’s legal and economic affairs?

• Does formalization improve economic development in ASM communities? Are there different outcomes for different groups?

• Can formalization improve environmental conditions in mining areas?

METHODOLOGY

Evaluation Design & Analytic Approach• Quasi-experimental fixed effects Difference-in-Difference (DID) • 4 quantitative survey instruments:

1. Household survey;2. Miner survey;3. Plantation owner survey;4. Customary Landowner (CLO) survey.

• Supplemental qualitative data (focus group discussions) details shifting attitudes and outcomes regarding the security, governance, and condition of land and water resources, as well as perceptions about ASM and the legality of diamond production in mining communities.

• Secondary or administrative data on land expropriation, contracts between communities and investors, maps, studies, production data and M&E data commissioned and collected as part of PRADD II.

Impacts Assessed for Indicators of:• Reduced incidence of community land

expropriation by the government without adequate consultation and fair and timely compensation

• Improved environmental and natural resource conditions

• Greater capacity to negotiate mutually beneficial contracts between communities, the state, and private sector investors

• Improved livelihood and welfare outcomes• Improved mining techniques

• Reduced incidence of conflicts• Greater perceived tenure security, secondary land

use rights, and protection of their community land from encroachment by outside actors

• Greater control, monitoring and legality of diamond production

• Knowledge and Awareness about Kimberley Process provisions and associated national mining law

• More transparent, accountable, and representative institutions for land and mining governance

• Greater investment in improving the condition of land and natural resources

Variance of Impacts Assessed Across:

• Female- vs male-headed households;• Household wealth status;• Age of household head.

Treatment and Control Groups• Treatment and control sites are located

in the Atlantic-draining Konkouré River basin of Southwestern Guinea (map, right).

• Dominant ethnic group and language in both areas is Soussou.

• Treatment Area: Forecariah prefecture• 100 km from Conakry;• Selected as a site for PRADD II due to its

inefficient and unproductive mining system and the illegal and informal nature of most diamond sales.

• Control Area: Kindia prefecture • 137 km from Conakry;• Identified in collaboration with PRADD II

team as the most suitable approach for creating a counterfactual.

TREATMENT AND CONTROL AREAS Source: Chirico, et.al. 2012.

Baseline Data Collection• Baseline completed December 2014• Population-based household survey data collected from 2,165 households in 104

communities. • Survey of 916 artisanal miners and masters with indigenous and foreign diggers,

washers and masters.• Survey of 324 self-identified plantation owners.• Survey of108 Customary Land Owners (CLOs). • Qualitative transcripts from a series of 35 focus group discussions (FGD), from 18

different communities.• 11 women-only focus groups, 10 youth focus groups, and 14 general groups of adults.

• Evaluation will examine changes over a 5 year period between:• 58 villages, covering 11 artisanal mining sites, in Forecariah prefecture (the treatment group); • 61 villages, covering 12 artisanal mining sites, in Kindia prefecture (the control group).

Baseline Data Collection Challenges• The 2014 Ebola outbreak in Guinea dramatically shaped the implementation of

the baseline data collection, imposing numerous challenges on the survey firm, such as: • No on-site coordination or training by Cloudburst; • Paper data collection and data entry; • Health threats to the survey team;• Safety threats to the survey team.

• These challenges ultimately had some impact on data quality. • In addition to numerous Ebola related challenges, the survey had a lower-than-

anticipated number of female respondents. • Survey conditions will likely be vastly different at endline data collection.

KEY BASELINE FINDINGS

Livelihoods, Land Use, and Management• Roughly 20% of households report any involvement with ASM • Households are dependent on agriculture, trade, and forest resources (charcoal

production and cutting timber). • In Forecariah, rice cultivation is the main agricultural activity. • Kindia is defined by the subsistence farming of vegetables, rice, cassava, and fruits. • Most income comes from trade and the selling of forest products.

• Decisions about what crops are planted, what inputs are used, and what investments to make on household’s fields are overwhelmingly made by male decision makers.

• Plot-level investment is low (low uptake of fertilizer, irrigation, fencing). • Little pressure on land in villages in the study area; rather, land is plentiful and the

limiting factor to increasing cultivated land is a lack of additional labor and inputs.

Customary Tenure• The customary land tenure system remains sophisticated and flexible. • Descendants of founding families oversee communal land:

• Allocate land for household use;• Allow access to outsiders for mining or investment.

• System of land allocation works effectively in villages, and satisfaction with land governance by Customary Land Owners (CLOs) and elders is high among respondents.

• When dealing with outsiders, savvy village-level actors know the limits of their lands and the customary prerogatives of each senior male actor and have a repertoire for negotiating with a range of different types of outsiders interested in land for farming, plantations, or mining.

Customary Tenure, cont. • Despite very low levels of land documentation, respondents report high levels of

perceived tenure security.• Although junior men and women are in principle granted insecure tenure rights, the

prevailing situation of land abundance means that there is no indication of these groups being disadvantaged in practice, even in cases where the state or state-sponsored actors have tried to expropriate land from locals.

• The local land tenure system as it is currently constituted seems to effectively manage the full range of land tenure challenges that are encountered.

Artisanal and Small-scale Mining (ASM)• Full-time job for some young men, but more often a secondary or tertiary economic

activity. • Customary tenure system remains the predominant means for gaining authorization to

mine a site. • This is an informal process that does not require miners to obtain a formal license to use the

mining site. • Government formalization of mining activities in the study area is not well established.

• Despite the close proximity of diamond mining and agricultural activities, there are minimal conflicts. • Conflicts that do occur are low-level. • Thus, strong social organization and an abundance of land minimize conflicts between miners

and farmers.

• Knowledge and awareness of Kimberley Process provisions and National Mining Law is low.

• Concern exists about the effects of mining on the environment, but miners rarely use smarter mining techniques or complete mining site rehabilitation.

CONCLUSIONS

Practical Challenges and Considerations for Endline• Balance between treatment and control groups emerged as an issue in both

large N surveys (household and ASM). • Due to the quasi experimental design of the evaluation.• Need to carefully account for at endline data collection and analysis.

• Paper surveys are more prone to errors than electronic surveys, and need careful review in the field to check for consistency and completeness. Despite the safeguards put into place, missing household survey data is a problem in the baseline dataset.

• ASM miners in Guinea are a challenging population to rigorously survey due to the transient nature of work.

• Rarity of occurrences for some outcomes of interest at baseline, particularly conflict, hinders detection of changes in these outcomes.

Ongoing Research from PRADD II Baseline Data(K. Marple-Cantrell, H. Huntington, in prep)

• In practice, what is the application of customary versus statutory tenure systems for use, access, and management rights to mining sites? What is the comparative status of tenure rights for miners, landowners, and farmers, especially when disputes arise?

• How can customary institutions heighten social gains and mitigate the social and environmental impacts of mining? How can ASM formalization bolster the well-being of receiving communities?

Thank You