The welfare impact of small-scale mining in the Talensi–Nabdam District of Ghana

Abstract

Over the last two decades, Ghana has experienced a rapid and unprecedented upsurge in small scale mining activities. Concerns of the impacts of small scale mining on the environment and welfare of small scale miners and communities have been raised by policy makers, implementers and the academia. This report examines the welfare impact of small scale mining in the Talensi–Nabdam District of the Upper East Region of Ghana using a quantitative approach. Two hundred people were sampled across five communities in the District. Two main welfare outcomes — income earnings and consumption expenditures were examined. The Difference-In-Difference approach was adopted and the model estimated using STATA (Version 10). It was found that there is a significant difference between small scale miners and non-small scale miners in terms of the welfare outcomes. Apart from small scale mining, household size, level of endowments, gender, access to credit and level of literacy among other unobserved factors account for the difference in welfare outcomes between small scale miners and non-small scale miners. It is concluded that small scale mining has positive impacts on the welfare of small scale miners.