Reform of the mining sector, supervision of artisanal diggers, and governance of gold panning in the province of Maniema: Challenges, dynamics, and participants

Successive reforms in the Congolese public sector have been hampered by numerous difficulties since the 1960s. Contrary to the theory of a resource curse, it is often acknowledged that legal reforms in the mining sector have a positive impact on economic growth and contribute to improving the living conditions of the population. However, in the DRC, legal innovations in the mining sector do not seem to have had the expected impact on practices and customs in this sector, and even less in the fight against poverty, particularly in Maniema province. The results of this study on the mining sector reform of 2018 reveal that, in order to make these transformations operational, the administration needs to drive change with a proactive strategy that takes account of the actual context.