Responsibly sourced African gold is critical to maintaining trust in the global bullion market. Ensuring that African gold enters regulated and transparent supply chains supports market integrity and responsible sourcing efforts, says international trade association London Bullion Market Association (LBMA) sustainability and responsible sourcing director Nirali Shah.

Africa is not only a major gold-producing region but also home to some of the world’s most vulnerable communities and complex governance environments.

“Recent events, including the conflict in Sudan, highlight this reality starkly. Sudan’s crisis has accelerated illicit gold extraction and smuggling routes, deepened humanitarian suffering and created new incentives for armed actors to capture or exploit gold resources,” she adds.

The association has consistently emphasised in its outreach to international bullion centres (IBCs) that the global bullion market has a shared responsibility to support efforts to reduce the risk that gold is used to fund or sustain conflict, harm communities or undermine governance. This outreach also includes engagement with local governments, regulators and authorities to help strengthen local compliance expectations.

Shah also notes that structures – such as the LBMA’s responsible sourcing framework, underpinned by independent third-party assurances – provide globally consistent standards based on international expectations for human rights, environmental responsibility and conflict sensitivity.

The LBMA Good Delivery List, as well as the Global Precious Metals Code and continually evolving Responsible Sourcing Programme signal to gold-procuring countries that participation in trusted, regulated markets comes with clear expectations for their economies, citizens and natural resources.

Responsibly sourced African gold is important not only because of the continent’s production volumes but also as a result of the role its responsible and ethical mining plays in preventing exploitation and upholding the credibility of the global market.

“Responsible sourcing practices are widely recognised as an important component of efforts to promote stability, good governance and trust in the market,” she adds.

Artisanal Acceleration

Shah also highlights that artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) plays a vital role in many African economies, adding that the LBMA’s overarching objective is not to exclude such production, but to bring more legitimate ASM activities into formal, regulated channels where due diligence can be undertaken and mineworkers can benefit more directly from responsible market access.

A key part of this approach is the association’s ASM toolkit, which was developed precisely to support ASM formalisation. This toolkit is built on the principle of continuous improvement, rather than imposing stringent, high-entry standards.

The approach afforded through the toolkit, points out Shah, ensures that the formalisation requirements do not function as a compliance barrier, but rather as an enabler, helping ASM suppliers meet expectations without being excluded from the global market.

The practical steps that LBMA is endorsing to support formalisation include ASM supplier onboarding pathways, guided by the toolkit’s minimum and progressive improvement requirements, as well as on-the-ground engagement to identify responsible ASM supply chains in countries such as Ghana, Tanzania and Côte d’Ivoire.

Other improvements involve promoting State or central bank purchasing programmes to stabilise ASM demand, improving traceability and supporting governance reforms through IBC recommendations by urging major trading hubs to create conditions that encourage responsible ASM, outlines Shah.

Further, the LBMA’s ‘Sustainability and Responsible Sourcing Report’, published in October 2025, highlights that since 2018, responsibly sourced ASM gold refined by the LBMA’s good delivery refiners has increased by 51%.

Through the toolkit, the Responsible Sourcing Programme and sustained international engagement, the association is helping build clear, credible and accessible pathways that formalise ASM supply chains while upholding the integrity of the global bullion market.

“Excluding ASM from global markets would be counterproductive – it would only push production into informal routes and increase supply chain risks. LBMA’s aim is, therefore, to provide the tools, guidance and partnerships that support ASM actors to participate legitimately and responsibly,” concludes Shah.