Abstract:
Ghana is fast losing its ecological health to illegal gold mining (IGM), since the last two decades. Aside the dearth
and paucity of studies on IGM, prior literature on IGM have largely concentrated on unidimensional methods at
the neglect of multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM). Against this backdrop, the present study aims to address
the yawning gap in literature using the novel MCDM hybrid LDA-PSI-TOPSIS. Accordingly, a thorough search
was done in notable databases including ScienceDirect, Scopus and Web of Science, using linguistic terms ((such
as “barriers” OR “drivers” OR “challenges” OR “causes” OR “impediment” OR” “enablers” OR “strategies”) AND
(“illegal mining” OR “illegal small-scale gold mining”)), to obtain the barriers to eradicate IGM, and the cor
responding strategies to overcome these barriers. Overall, 5 main barriers, 26 sub-barriers, and eights strategies
were identified. Subsequently, the barriers and the strategies were ranked by 20 experts from academia and
industry based on the framework of the study. The study’s findings reveal a hierarchical arrangement of the main
barriers to IGM eradication, with the following order: socioeconomic barriers (44%), governance barriers (20%),
weak institutional and cultural barriers (17%), regulatory barriers (15%), and equipment/foreign miners barriers
(4%). Furthermore, the eight strategies for IGM eradication were systematically ranked as follows: alternative
livelihood and improved formalization; moral economy, anti-corruption campaign, and cultural reprogramming;
community engagement; improved governance structures and public service; autonomy for judicial and auxiliary
services; monitoring and surveillance; economic sanctions (naming-and-shaming); and international coopera
tion. From a managerial perspective, the study proposes an innovative blend of top-down and bottom-up stra
tegies to catalyze
