科研成果详情

A proactive royal offspring attempts to bring back hope to hundreds of Congolese miners whose livelihoods have been endangered by years of civil conflicts and defacto embargos in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). This brief paper looks at the how the Conflict-Free Tin Initiative (CFTI) launched in 2012 by His Royal Highness Prince Jaime de Bourbon Parme, Dutch diplomat and son of Irene of the Netherlands, in cooperation with relevant stakeholders along the tin supply chain, concretely aims to address the controversial issue of sourcing and trade of "blood minerals" in the restive province of South Kivu. Despite not being a panacea for a conflict-ridden region in which government control is feeble at best, CFTI does represent a significant example of how traceability – pursued within the existing market system through a closed-pipe, tightly controlled supply chain - can reduce exploitation and guarantee that revenues from the export of natural resources may end up fuelling sustainable grassroots development, not instability.