The central objective of the research is to strengthen standards and best practices to curb irresponsible and illegal extraction activities through guidelines and tools for governing, monitoring and managing sand extraction, and by sharing information and establishing dialogue between key players and stakeholders. This will be done through: (i) a general mapping of relevant information (academic and policy) on (sustainable) sand commodity chains, as well as of international and Belgian initiatives related to the sector, including rapidly expanding human rights due diligence approaches. (ii) case studies in Morocco and Tanzania, to better understand (sand governance) realities on the ground, and to investigate the added value of Belgian diplomacy and development cooperation. (iii) provide jumping-off points to bring the topic to the level of international engagement, specifically focusing on the effective dissemination of results as well as the role of Belgian initiatives in working towards sustainable, gender-sensitive sand value chains.