WOMEN AND MINING Voice, Empowerment, Opportunity

1. WOMEN AND MININGVoice, Empowerment, Opportunity Extractive Industries: Legal and Fiscal Regimes, Revenue Management, and Good Governance May 17, 2007 Adriana Eftimie, Sheila Shariari and John Strongman (COCPO)

2. The Gender Bias in Mining • As we just heard, mining development have both positive and negative impacts for communities • Increased body of evidence shows that a gender bias exists in distribution of risks and benefits of mining projects: • benefits typically accrue to men in the form of employment, income, and compensation, and • the costs, such as family/social breakdowns, cultural harm and environmental degradation, fall most heavily on women and children.

3. Key Risks of Mining Activities on Women Risks • Loss of ownership or use of fertile agricultural land or gardens • Environmental harm and water pollution leading to loss of water sources and depleted fish stock • Exclusion from mining employment opportunities and other income generating activities • Increase in domestic abuse and sexual violence leading to social disruption and family breakdown • Alcoholism, prostitution, rise in HIV/AIDS and other STDs • Loss of safety and security due to influx of migrants

4. Key Benefits of Mining Activities on Women Benefits • Improved access to education • Improved infrastructure and transport • Improved access to health care • Improved community social services • Direct mining project employment • Indirect employment opportunities through linkages, SME developments, and micro-credit loans

5. Why Gender Matters:The Development Case for Empowering Women • Investment in women’s economic and social empowerment is a direct investment in the community and the economy because: • Women generally use available income for food, shelter, health, education, and savings for their families, whereas men are prone to use income for personal consumption. • Women make-up half of the productive labor force and discrimination against women in the labor market is an impediment to economic growth.

6. Why Gender Matters:The Business Case for Empowering Women Ensuring gender equality in economic opportunities and including women’s concerns in mining activities can also directly improve a company’s bottom line by: • Minimizing tensions and conflict between the community and the mining developer, enabling management to devote more time to core business and less time on responding to concerns or conflict management • Increasing productivity and reducing cost through hiring more women who perform some jobs more efficiently than men. • Safeguarding company reputation and brand image with shareholders and international NGOs. • Achieving greater payoffs and sustainability from community-related expenditures and actions. • Improving safety and environmental standards because women show greater willingness to respect safety and environmentalsafeguards.

7. Actions for Economic Empowerment • Companies • Affirmative action for greater employment of women • Job skills training for both internal and external employment • Spin-off jobs and contracts aimed at women • Community economic development programs – emphasizing women’s priorities • Communities and NGOs • Micro-credits for women’s business/cottage industries • Men and women equally represented as agents for community level distribution of benefits payments • Government • Local/regional/national development plans that include support for women’s business development priorities • Relevant ministry to direct a percentage of compensation and royalty benefits to support community-based Sustainable Development Programs including women’s projects

8. Actions for Social Empowerment • Companies • Appointment of gender desk for women’s issues (both internal and community related) • Include community women representatives in discussions at all stages of project life • Communities and NGOs • Select and support women to represent community concerns in committee and forums • Liaise with local government on issues of concern to women • Government • Establish gender desks in relevant ministries; Provincial and local level governments • Develop programs to mitigate social risks such as family and community breakdown • Address women’s social priorities in planning service delivery such as health, education and security

9. Actions for Improved Well-being • Companies • Literacy training for women in local communities • Community access to company health services • Counseling for both female and male employees to reduce domestic violence and assist victims of violence • Communities, NGOs and Government • Support adult literacy, vocational skills and business training • Education about HIV/AIDs and other high risk diseases • Survey of women’s access to social and community services • Educate women about their rights and responsibilities regarding violence and abuse • Establish counseling services for victims of violence and abuse • Establish support services for alcohol and drug abuse

10. What Can We Do? • Look at our mining projects through the gender lens of benefits and risks • Ensure that country/ project site consultations include women’s groups so women have equal access to project information and can participate in the decision-making that affects their lives. • Listen to women’s voices: • Give women a forum to identify strategies to improve their lives • Respond to women’s needs and requests: • Design interventions to address women’s needs – eg micro-credit schemes, literacy programs, and counseling for victims of abuse

11. What Can We Do?(cont’) • Empower women leaders to help others in their communities: • Support women leaders from mining communities and increase their capacity to have a voice in mining decision making • Empower women to be engaged in the assessment of the impacts of mine development • Design participatory monitoring and evaluation systems that actively involve women.

12. A step forwardTTL Guideline Mainstream gender issues in mining projects by providing guidance for task managers on how to incorporate gender issues into the project cycle through: • identifying and consulting with women’s groups on key gender issues in the sector during project design and preparation. • effectively implementing gender sensitive interventions and ensuring a participatory monitoring and evaluation system that actively involves women during project supervision.

13. Thank you!http://www.worldbank.org/eigender