| dc.description.abstract | Illegal gold mining is arguably the most challenging national issue in Ghana today. This unbridled rush for gold has unleashed inestimable damages to the economy of Ghana including child labor, environmental stress, loss of tax revenue, and health crises in mining communities. As a limit to growth commodity, gold in Ghana will eventually become exhausted, either sooner or later. The ideal condition will therefore be to formalize the sector in a practically sustainable way. This thesis considers how the small-scale mines in Ghana can be formalized using the self-organized type of governance. In this system of governance, the indigenous miners are actively involved in creating and enforcing rules that govern the sector. When this happens, resource boundaries and resource users are clearly specified, effectively excluding foreigner from partaking in small-scale mining activities. Using a system dynamics model as an analytical tool, results show what amount of tax is needed to sustain the small-scale mining sector whilst ensuring a thorough care for the environment by the miners themselves. A win-win result ensues as the sector will provide a good measure of income to investors, greatly reduce the unemployment rate, whilst government will be able to receive a modest income as revenue from tax for the future of the mining sector. | |
