Multi-stakeholder regulation of conflict minerals in the Democratic Republic of Congo: The challenges to include missing voices from the DRC.

The Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is endowed with valuable minerals that are critical for many industries, specifically the electronics industry. However, the area has been plagued with violent conflict and insecurity since 1996. The conflict is often explained with “resource curse” theory and is largely attributed to the profits derived from the trade in these minerals, hence the name “conflict minerals.” As the demand for these minerals remains strong, even in the stagnant global economy, and the minerals trade continues to drive the conflict, various initiatives to curb the trade in conflict minerals have been developed. Given the complex supply chains of these minerals and weak governance of the DRC state, the initiatives increasingly adopt multi-stakeholder processes. This article aims to examine the recent development of these multistakeholder processes to regulate conflict minerals in global supply chains. It identifies a number of challenges in their implementation and reflects the externally driven agenda of responsible supply chains, and the lack of participation by local stakeholders. Furthermore, the article highlights some obstacles to meaningful participation of local stakeholders. Publisher statement: A New Generation of Public Control by Citizens&Markets a Transparencia Mexicana Initiative is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercialShareAlike 4.0 International License