Named programmes pay, train and track hand dug cobalt diggers in Democratic Republic of Congo

Congo digs most of the world cobalt by hand

Cobalt is a metal used in the batteries of electric vehicles, phones and laptops. The Fair Cobalt Alliance, a nonprofit that works with mine sites in Democratic Republic of Congo, reports the country produced 73.9% of the world cobalt in 2024. Between 150,000 and 250,000 people dig for some of that cobalt by hand, a way of working called artisanal mining, and that hand dug output makes up to 2% of total cobalt production in the country. The World Bank records a poverty rate of 81.1% in 2025, measured against 3 dollars a day, in the same country, one reason so many people take up the work despite its danger.

What one alliance did in 2025

The Fair Cobalt Alliance ran 46 safety training sessions through 100 safety captains in 2025, reaching nearly 5,000 miners. It helped 52 children leave mine sites for school that year, bringing to 95 the total number of children it has supported since it began, and it returned 113 siblings of those children to school through a programme it calls the Sibling Education Fund. Every enrolled child who sat exams that year passed. Members of 27 savings and loan groups the alliance runs saved more than 180,000 dollars in 2025 and started 76 new small businesses with that money.

Bandi Mbubi, executive director of the Fair Cobalt Alliance, said the alliance lost funding from the United States Agency for International Development, a government aid programme, in 2025, after receiving that funding at the end of 2024.

It was a serious setback. And yet, the FCA did not stand still.

Bandi Mbubi, executive director of the Fair Cobalt Alliance. Source 1.

The European Partnership for Responsible Minerals has funded digital record keeping at an alliance partner mine site in Kolwezi since 2024. A February 2026 visit found dynamos powering underground ventilation and a changing room for women ore washers.

The government signs on

The government agency for artisanal mining in Democratic Republic of Congo signed a 5 year agreement with the Fair Cobalt Alliance at DRC Mining Week 2026 in Lubumbashi. Under it, the agency will give the alliance access to mine sites and involve it in training and supervising mining cooperatives, and the alliance will help those cooperatives get equipment and financing. On July 10, 2026, the president of Democratic Republic of Congo ordered the immediate withdrawal of soldiers and police illegally deployed at mine sites across the country. The alliance also reports that the government announced 64 new legal artisanal mining zones in Lualaba province in 2025, replaced its export moratorium with a quota system, and that the state cobalt buyer shipped its first 1,000 tonnes of traceable artisanal cobalt, meaning buyers can now check where that cobalt came from.

Independent counts of a wider supply chain

The Cobalt Institute, an industry association independent of the alliance, reports that 77% of the world mined cobalt supply passed refiner checks for responsible sourcing in 2024, and that 83% of that checked supply came from assets in Democratic Republic of Congo. One mine run by CMOC earned what the institute calls Africa first Copper Mark certification, a label for responsible mining.

Societal, environmental and industrial practices are no longer optional - these are market obligations and prerequisites for competitiveness.

Louis Watum Kamamba, minister of mines of Democratic Republic of Congo. Source 4.

A slower year for the wider economy

The mining sector in Democratic Republic of Congo grew 10.1% in 2025, down from 11.9% the year before, while the rest of the economy grew 3.1%. The slowdown includes a cobalt export ban the government ran from February to October 2025, replaced afterward by the quota system.

None of these programmes yet reach most of the 150,000 to 250,000 people who dig by hand, but each is a measured step toward paying and tracking them rather than walking away from their cobalt.