Going for gold: transitional livelihoods in Northern Ghana

This article critically reflects on what impact a supported and formalized artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) sector could have in Northern Ghana, where poverty is deeply rooted, the outcome of decades of government neglect. Since independence in 1957, numerous attempts have been made to improve the living standards of the populations in the country's North but deteriorated human resource bases and shortages of infrastructure have limited their effectiveness. A recent upsurge in ASM activity, however, has catapulted the region on to another – previously unimaginable – growth trajectory entirely. As findings from research carried out in the township of Kui in Bole District of the country's Northern Region illustrate, ASM has injected considerable wealth into many of Ghana's Northern localities, in the process helping to stabilise their economies and alleviate the hardships of tens of thousands of farm-dependent families. The intensification of support to, and the formalisation of, ASM, could prove to be an important step toward eradicating a poverty problem that has plagued this region of sub-Saharan Africa for more than a century.