The National Consultative Forum on Small-Scale Mining has begun Wednesday.

The forum will be a two-day roundtable discussion on challenges confronting the small-scale mining sector.

There will also be deliberations on possible solutions.

It will bring together key mining experts, the Small-Scale Mining Association, the Coalition of Civil Society Against Illegal Small-Scale Mining, among others.

Ahead of the forum, stakeholders in the sector have proposed varied solutions to deal with illegalities in the sector.

Some stakeholders have called for a strong political will to tackle the issues head-on, while others are advocating for the use of innovations and technology.

The Executive Secretary of the Centre for Social Impact Studies, Richard Ellimah, for example, said “the issue of taking it [small scale mining] out of politics should be key.”

He also said the application of technology should become more widespread in the sector.

Mr. Ellimah suggested the use of geospatial tracking mining equipment, as an example.

“Technology is very key because when you have too many people in that space, and you don’t do [geospatial] monitoring of the work they are doing, regulating the sector may not work.”

As part of the ministry’s plans to sanities the sector, it seeks to decentralize the regulation of mining in the country to assist licensing of mining firms in their respective localities.

The Minister of Lands and Natural Resources, Samuel Jinapor, has pledged to build a viable and sustainable mining industry that will be mutually beneficial to the state and investors.