Author: Sasha Lezhnev

Last week, the electronics industry updated its list of audited conflict-free smelters to 29. This is up from 11 smelters in the Conflict-Free Smelter program, or CFS, at the start of 2012—nearly tripling the size of the program over the past year ...

Leading electronics companies are making progress in eliminating conflict minerals from their supply chains, but still cannot label their products as being conflict free. Since Enough’s last corporate rankings report on conflict minerals in December 2010, a majority of leading consumer electronics companies have moved ahead in addressing conflict minerals in their supply chains—spurred by the conflict minerals provision in the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act and growing consumer activism, particularly on college campuses. Most firms have improved their scores from the 2010 rankings, but some laggards still remain ...

Although civilian protection is stated to be the highest priority of the United Nations peacekeeping mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo, MONUSCO, the mission continually struggles to fulfill this mandate. Overall, the failure of the U.N. to deal with the FDLR, as a major factor in regional instability, allows for the eastern Congo crisis to fester. The optimal longer term alteration in MONUSCO’s mandate would be to empower and support it, in coordination with other actors in the region, to end the FDLR threat along the lines of the Ituri “Artemis” model. Given MONUSCO’s current mandate on civilian protection, ...

The Obama administration announced last Thursday that it will support a critical missing link in the fight against conflict minerals: independent monitoring. This is a major step in the long fight against the illegal trade in conflict minerals ...

In this op-ed for Global Post, I outline some steps people moved by "Kony 2012" can take to help end the Lord's Resistance Army ...

The Congolese army captured two of the largest minerals mines in eastern Congo last week—the enormous Bisie tin mine and the Omate gold mine. If the objective is to enable conflict-free minerals from Congo to be sold in international markets, the Congolese government should ensure that the army hands these mines over to the mining police as soon as possible ...

This report argues that the U.S. mission to end the Lord’s Resistance Army needs more capable troops, more robust transport and intelligence capabilities, and a two-tiered strategy to encourage defections. The report also calls for an agreement that allows regional troops to deploy in the Democratic Republic of Congo ...

Apple released its 2012 Sustainability Report last Friday, and it showed that it is doing some things very well on conflict minerals and other things not very well ...

The Catholic Bishops Conference of Congo wrote to the Securities and Exchange Commission, or SEC, last week supporting strong regulations for the Dodd-Frank legislation on conflict minerals and combating the notion that the bill is bad for Congolese livelihoods ...

For peace and stability to take hold in Congo, reform must happen on multiple fronts. The final lead-up to Congo’s elections marks a pivotal moment for reform and conflict prevention in eastern Congo, where success will require increased involvement from the Obama administration, the Congolese government, and corporations, all pushing for conflict minerals monitoring, mine security, and community protection ...