Morocco

Total: Most recent and most reliable appears the personal information from MM (2017): 100,000.
Min/max: Certainty is however low. Minimum is estimated according to UBC-14 data (73,000), Maximum according to MM (2017) estimations (150,000). → 73,000 - 150,000
Female occupation probably low, being an islamic country; → perhaps 2,000?
Gold: UBC-14 data appears to also include ASM on other minerals and therefore overestimating the number of ASGM miners.But the border region between Morocco, Mauritania and Algeria has been known for several years to attract ASGM, but little is published. Best guess: not more than 10,000 (?)

2019: 8,000

DELVE-19: Country Profile Morocco 8,000

ASM Employment:  5,000–10,000 (total), 1,500 (barite) 
Female Miners: Unknown 
Formalization: Unknown 

Materials mined by ASM
• Barite, lead, zinc total: 495,710 tons (2013)
• Barite: 397,000 tons = 80% of total (2013)

(Outdated data inherited from 1999!)

2017: 100,000

Interview w. Michał Młynarczyk (EIT Raw Materials): 100,000 and possibly up to 150,000

2014: 73,000

(UBC-14): Gold-only data produced by statistic modelling:

Expected ASM population: 73,000 
Estimated ASM gold production: 1.1 t/a

1999: 7,500

(ILO-99): Employment: 5,000 - 10,000
Number of mines: n/a
Illegal mines: n/a

ReferenceYearCitationArchived CopyLink
DELVE-192019World Bank (2019): 2019 State of the Artisanal and Small-Scale Mining Sector. World Bank, Washington D.C.delve-19.pdfdelvedatabase.org/…
ARM-182018Barreto, M.L.,Schein, P., Hinton, J., Hruschka, F. (2018): The Impact of Small-Scale Mining Operations on Economies and Livelihoods in Low- to Middle-Income Countries. ARM, Envigado, PACT, Westcombe.arm-18.pdfresponsiblemines.org/…
IGF-182018IGF (2018): Global Trends in Artisanal and Small-Scale Mining (ASM): A review of key numbers and issues. IIED/IISD, London, Winnipeg.igf-18.pdfiisd.org/…
UBC-142014Seccatore, J., Veiga, M., et al. (Univ. of British Columbia - UBC) (2014): An estimation of the artisanal small-scale production of gold in the world. Scitotenv. 496.ubc-14.pdfdoi.org/…
ILO-991999Jennings, N. (1999): Social and labour issues in small-scale mines. Report for discussion at the Tripartite Meeting on Social and Labour Issues in Small-scale Mines. ILO, Geneva.ilo-99.pdfilo.org/…
ASM DATA - Country Database Record
Country CodeMAR
CountryMorocco
ASM StatusExisting (data assessed)
Country Count1
Data year2017
Publ. year2019
ASM Miners100,000
- gold10 ,000
Inc. DevMinsome
- min.73,000
- max.150,000
- female2 ,000
ASM Commoditieslead, zinc, barite, gold, gemstone
  • country/morocco.txt
  • Last modified: 2022/11/11
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