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Women’s economic empowerment:
sharing women’s experiences in
artisanal and small-scale mining
Thokozile Ruzvidzo and Maharouf Oyolola, African Centre for Gender, United Nations Economic Commission for Africa
T
he United Nations Economic Commission for Africa
(ECA) recognizes women’s economic empowerment
as critical to the achievement of broader economic
and social development goals. This is in line with agreed
regional and global frameworks, including Agenda 2030
and its Sustainable Development Goals, and the Africa
Agenda 2063.
ECA’s strategic framework, the Continent-Wide Initiative on
Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment, recognizes
the positive interplay between gender equality and Africa’s
structural transformation. It has identified three interlinked
thematic focus areas: women’s economic empowerment,
women’s political rights and the social sector. Within the
women’s economic empowerment pillar, ‘Promoting women’s
entrepreneurship’ is an area that ECA addresses, specifically
looking at the agricultural sector and the extractive industries.
In September 2014, ECA launched its Gender and Mining
Project with a comprehensive study that has shed important
light on how artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) impacts
the livelihoods of women in Africa. Drawing on dialogue
with six countries (Ghana, Guinea, the Democratic Republic
of Congo (DR Congo), Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe), a
study was conducted with the objectives to:
• broaden understanding of the policy treatment of gender
issues in ASM through a review of existing legislative
frameworks, laws, mining codes and standards
• interrogate current and potential financing mechanisms
for women in the sector
• identify opportunities for private sector partnerships,
specifically with large-scale mining (LSM), with the aim
of empowering women.
These six national studies aim to broaden understanding of
the gender dimension of ASM in Africa. More importantly,
they have been a much-needed foray into the lives of the
region’s rural inhabitants, providing knowledge which could
help to strengthen development interventions in the sector.
The studies have captured valuable data on women’s
participation in ASM, illustrating how women mostly
have a marginalized role in the sector in each country and
underscoring how intensified support could help allevi-
ate their hardships and empower their families. Broadly,
the project has unearthed valuable information about the
contribution ASM is making in the region. As the Zambia
and Ghana studies illustrate, ASM has inseparable ties with
agriculture and is contributing enormously to national
mineral outputs. The studies show – mostly implicitly
– that the performance of ASM is linked to the sector’s
activities being mostly confined to informal ‘spaces’, further
underscoring calls from scholars about the importance of
formalization in this context. Finally, the studies offer a
timely reminder of the breadth of activities in the region’s
ASM economy. Because of the unique orientation and
production dynamics of, and different markets targeted by,
these different ‘branches’ of ASM, each has its own unique
gender dimension which will ultimately require the design
and implementation of context-specific policies and solu-
tions. The studies have brought to light a number of issues.
Gaps in government policies and legislation constrain the
potential economic empowerment of women through their
involvement in ASM. These span issues of legality, clarity
and consistency across the ASM subsector (such as appli-
cation to both gold and quarrying ASM). Further, existing
legislation is typically not gender-responsive. Women in
ASM face challenges in adhering to the laws, in many cases
stemming from lack of knowledge about laws and processes,
the bureaucratic process of applying for mining licences
(which requires a level of literacy and/or technical knowl-
edge), and the high cost of mining licences.
The ASM subsector is constrained by the structure of
traditional and formal financing options. Mining has long
lead times and specifically for ASM miners, lack of credit-
worthiness, unbankable documents, lack of collateral and
high mobility tend to discredit their applications for loans.
In Ghana, one of the women interviewed was denied access
to a loan facility because of her gender but was later given
the facility when her husband became the primary applicant.
In DR Congo and Tanzania, formal financial institutions are
hesitant to lend to women miners because they lack proper
geological assessment reports on mining concessions, hence
limiting their chances of repaying the loan should it be guar-
anteed. In Tanzania, the Tanzania Development Bank under
the National Economic Empowerment Policy provides small
loans to women in general; however, for women miners the
size of the loan is inadequate to fund the sustainability of
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