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Blog Posts in Livelihoods

Five Stories You May Have Missed This Week
Posted by Carine Umuhumuza on Apr 19, 2013
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A weekly round-up of must-read stories, posted every Friday. 

Wall Street Journal Highlights Congo’s Conflict Gold Trade: U.S. Should Sanction Smugglers
Posted by Sasha Lezhnev on Apr 15, 2013
Congolese miners

This morning the Wall Street Journal published an exposé on the conflict gold trade from eastern Congo, which is worth an estimated $285-400 million per year. The article details the lucrative trade in conflict gold as it is transported from mines in eastern Congo to smugglers in Uganda and Burundi and then to jewelers and dealers in Dubai and India. As the piece highlights, conflict gold is an increasingly important issue for jewelers and the gold industry, as there now exists a “shadowy chain of smuggled gold that stretches from the conflict zones of the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the markets of Dubai and jewelry shops around the world.”

Sourcing Conflict-free Minerals from the Kivus No Longer a Pipe Dream, Monitoring Must Follow
Posted by Enough Team on Feb 26, 2013

Eastern Congo’s Kivu provinces are making slow but steady progress to establish certified minerals trading routes. A total of 20 mining sites qualified and validated as “green” (conflict-free) in North and South Kivu by a multi-stakeholder body made up of the Congolese government, minerals dealers, and local NGOs. The Enough Project joined more than two dozen delegates from Philips, Motorola Solutions, Fair Phone, ITRI, other industry partners, governments, civil society groups, journalists, and the Netherlands special envoy on a four-day trip to see first-hand the Kivus’ first conflict-free minerals supply chain in the works.

CNN Op-ed: Hope for an End to the World's Deadliest War
Posted by John Prendergast on Feb 22, 2013
M23 rebels withdraw from city of Goma in eastern Congo.

Early one eastern Congolese morning six months ago, Josephine was sleeping in her hut, dreaming about selling her crops. She heard people singing victory songs, thinking it was part of her dream, but gunshots jolted her awake. 

Apple Makes New Pledges on Conflict Minerals, Should Begin Clean Congo Sourcing Program
Posted by Sasha Lezhnev on Feb 15, 2013

Tech giant Apple has come a long way on conflict minerals. In 2010, they were one of the worst consumer electronics companies in their response to this serious problem, and Enough Project, Campus Progress, and A Thousand Sisters protested the opening of their store in Georgetown, Washington, D.C. But Apple has started to turn the corner on conflict minerals with some substantial steps.