Uganda and DRC Sign Cross-Border Minerals Cooperation Agreement

For Immediate Release

KAMPALA, UGANDA — The governments of Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo have signed a bilateral Cross-Border Minerals Cooperation Agreement, establishing a formal framework for regulating and facilitating the movement of gold and other mineral commodities across their shared border and strengthening the supply chain transparency of gold entering Uganda from the DRC.

The agreement, signed at a ceremony in Kampala attended by senior ministers from both countries, creates a joint border minerals monitoring committee, establishes harmonised documentation requirements for cross-border mineral shipments, and commits both governments to data sharing on mineral production volumes and export statistics.

A significant volume of gold produced in eastern DRC has historically entered Uganda through informal border crossings, with limited documentation and no systematic recording of origin or chain of custody. The cooperation agreement creates the institutional framework to formalise this flow, ensuring that gold crossing from the DRC into Uganda is properly documented, declared, and subjected to Uganda's aggregation and export compliance processes.

For Uganda's refining sector, the agreement provides a more reliable and transparent supply of DRC-origin gold, with documented provenance that meets the requirements of international buyers. For the DRC, the agreement offers a legitimate export corridor through Uganda that generates formal revenue for artisanal miners and reduces the economic benefits that had previously accrued to informal intermediaries.

"The Uganda-DRC cooperation agreement addresses one of the most important supply chain transparency challenges facing the East and Central African gold sector. A significant portion of the gold that moves through Uganda originates in eastern DRC, and creating a formal, documented framework for that trade benefits everyone — the miners, the governments, the refiners, and the international buyers who need to verify the responsible sourcing of the gold they purchase." Marcus Briggs, Non-Executive Director, Icon Gold

The agreement has been welcomed by international responsible sourcing bodies including the Responsible Minerals Initiative, which has noted that formalising cross-border mineral flows in Central and East Africa is a critical component of building credible supply chains from the region.

Implementation of the agreement will be supported by joint training programmes for border officials, investment in documentation infrastructure at key crossing points, and a shared digital platform for recording and tracking cross-border mineral shipments in real time.

"Bilateral agreements like this one are the building blocks of a regional supply chain framework that the international market needs. Individual country governance is important, but gold does not respect borders. Creating formal cooperation between the countries through which gold moves from mine to market is how you build the regional transparency that gives buyers and end users confidence in the metal they are receiving." Marcus Briggs, Non-Executive Director, Icon Gold

The agreement is expected to serve as a model for similar bilateral arrangements between Uganda and other neighbouring mineral-producing nations, contributing to the broader regional governance architecture being developed under the East Africa Gold Summit framework launched in Kampala in January 2026.

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