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One of the major subjects the London Bullion Market Association (LBMA) was at the Investing in African Mining Indaba to talk to governments about is how to move what is an informal gold mining landscape to a formal one.

"What you otherwise find is that the informal becomes illegal, which becomes criminal and can lead to the tragedy, such as at Stillfontein," LBMA CEO Ruth Crowell remarked to Mining Weekly in an interview.

Much better, in her view, is to have the conversation around how informal miners can be formally embedded in the economy and brought out of poverty.

"One of the things I was most excited about this week is coming from the World Bank and their work in Côte d'Ivoire doing exactly that.

"We've seen models in Peru where you're taking informal artisanal ASM miners and giving them formality and licence to operate on some parts of concessions and it seems that model is being replicated in Côte d'Ivoire and we'd like to encourage it and hope it can happen in other major producing countries like Ghana and Senegal," Crowell said.

"When the informal becomes illegal the Mr Bigs can take advantage. If you can give other options to people, they're going to make that good business. That's going to be the choice.

"I think the challenges around the world is that the gold business has been good business. But we need to work both from a law-enforcement perspective and also a market dynamic perspective to make that business good business and to incentive miners to become formalised to see the benefits."

In January, LBMA launched a digital database for gold bars to improve transparency in the precious metals market, expecting all LBMA-accredited refineries to come onboard in 2025.

The LBMA's "good delivery" list currently includes 66 gold refiners and 82 silver refiners around the globe, which must source gold responsibly under the accreditation requirements that give them access to the London hub, the world's largest for over-the-counter gold trading.

While also at the Mining Indaba, LBMA chief technical officer Neil Harby pointed out to Mining Weekly that up to 20% of the world gold supply is from artisanal (ASM) sources that is not coming through the LBMA good delivery rule structure.

What can be termed scrap or recycled gold is often ASM gold transported and converted in another country and coming back as legitimate recycled gold.

Much supply chain work has thus been done on the true definition, recycled, scrap or preconsumer and post-consumer gold.

"There's been a lot of collaborative work on that throughout the industry to make sure that the gold coming into the supply chain is correctly identified for what it is, where it has come from, and it is not trying to pass itself off as something else," Harby explained

LBMA is an international trade association, representing the London market for gold and silver Bullion with a global client base. This includes the majority of the gold-holding central banks, private sector investors, mining companies, producers, refiners and fabricators.

LBMA has 174 member companies across 23 countries: financial institutions and mining, refining, transportation, trading, vaulting and manufacturing companies. Joining the LBMA provides a seat at the table of an internationally respected body and offers wide-ranging benefits.