Madar (Dakar) - Senegal's ministries of Mines and Geology and of the Armed Forces on Tuesday, 3 November 2026, signed a partnership protocol tasking army engineers with marking out and securing seven pilot artisanal gold-mining corridors, at an estimated cost of CFA 488.4 million, Le Soleil reported.
The agreement was signed at the Armed Forces ministry by Mines and Geology Minister Cheikhou Oumar Seck and Armed Forces Minister Yankhoba Diémé, and will be implemented over two years.
Each site, of about 1 square kilometre, will be fenced with galvanised wire over some 4 km. Planned facilities include boreholes, solar installations, toilets, prayer areas, canteens and creches, the latter meant to protect children and ease the burden on women miners.
The first phase covers three sites in the Kédougou region in the east of the country: Ngary, Kaviar and Sekhoto. The other four depend on technical, geological, land and environmental approvals.
The mines minister cited "an imperative of economic sovereignty and security", while the armed forces minister said regulating gold extraction "will contribute to better control of the territory". The government says artisanal mining employs more than 31,000 people and points to its dangers, environmental damage, including pollution of rivers such as the Falémé, and the informal gold trade.
By 2029, the ministry aims to bring at least 50% of the sector's players into the formal economy and to trace artisanal output, under the 2026-2029 mining roadmap, which plans 38 corridors, ten of them pilots. Both ministers said success would depend on funding, coordination between services, meeting deadlines and involving local authorities and communities.
