The Alliance for Responsible Mining (ARM) is a registered nonprofit organisation with 20 years of experience working to transform the artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) sector into a socially and environmentally responsible activity. We collaborate with miners, mining communities, local civil society organisations (CSOs), legislators, and industry bodies to promote ASM formalisation, better mining practices, and access to legal markets. We do so through four core strategies: assisting miners on the ground, developing standards and certification systems, promoting governance of sustainable ASM, and building responsible supply chains and markets. After being launched as a network of independent organisations that aim to promote responsible standards for ASM, we are now recognised as a leading global expert on socially and environmentally responsible ASM, having helped 8.055 miners improve their mining practices in 27 countries in Latin America, the Caribbean, Africa, and Asia.

Our approach is holistic, territorial, progressive, participative, and gender sensitive. Through the Sustainable Mines Programme (SMP), we offer ASM miners a progressive path to adopt responsible, profitable, and sustainable mining practices guided by our voluntary sustainability standards (VSS): The CRAFT Code, Forest Smart ASM (FS-ASM), and the Fairmined Standard. In 2022, we joined forces with an IT company to develop a pioneer application, the ASM Progress App, to enhance the ability to digitally collect, store, and analyse field data to inform risk monitoring and evaluation. We have also developed capacity-building programmes on a wide range of topics related to responsible ASM, implemented programmes to promote mercury-free ASM in countries in Latin America and Africa, supported the creation of networks of women miners and the sensitisation about Gender-Based Violence (GBV) in the ASM sector, and helped buyers source their gold and related metals from responsible ASM operations.