Monday February 24, 2014, WorldBank Live Chat
4:21 Waafas Ofosu-Amaah:
Hi, this is Waafas Ofosu-Amaah. Welcome to this Live chat, and thanks a lot for your questions. We look forward to an interesting conversation this afternoon.
4:21 Comment From Valentina Kaman – Papua New Guinea
How can extractives influence policies to recognize and open doors for women from these communities to access the decision making stage and have an influence on the outcome?
4:23 Comment From Chantheany Mout – Cambodia
Women are more affected by mining impacts in my country, so what are the measures/approaches to ensure equitable distribution (impacts and benefits) for women?
4:25 Comment From Keiko Sanchez – United States
Deriving benefits from mining resources in general, whether for women or men, is a big challenge. How can we bring benefits to women when it is so difficult to even negotiate a good benefit package for mining – impacted communities? Do we have any examples of how women and men worked together to reduce risks associated with mining and increase benefits for their community, in general and to women/children/widows, in particular?
4:26 Waafas Ofosu-Amaah:
Keiko, thank you for your question. You have put your finger on the crux of the matter. Ensuring financial gains from the industry as a whole in a manner that enables those benefits to contribute to overall economic growth AND have that overall economic growth translate into social and economic benefits to communities has proven to be one of the most complex challenges facing governments. This requires a mix of policy and strategies at government and community levels. Unfortunately, there are not too many examples, but one from the developed world is the Norwegian government’s strong policy on equitable distribution of benefits and representation of women at high levels – for example on boards of mining companies. And most recently, an example from Papua New Guinea, where women in mining communities in the Western Province negotiated alongside their male counterparts for benefits from the Ok Tedi mine. Between 2007 and 2012, they were able to negotiate for amounts ranging from 10% to 18 % of these benefits to be set aside for women. http://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/extractiveindustries/brief/gender-in-extractive-industries Of course, the remaining challenge is how to implement what was negotiated.
4:26 Comment From Souleymane Zeba – Burkina Faso
Indeed Gender in Extractives is of concern. But where is the bottleneck/the key issue in Africa? I tend to question the economic model where mineral rich countries have to rely just on mere tax revenue, when all the wealth, refining jobs, and the value added are taken out of the national economy. How can women reap when their country has not?
4:27 Comment From Arin – Philippines
What are mining companies doing about this? Is this merely tokenism on their part or are there real opportunities for making real impact?
4:28 Jen Scott:
Thank you Chantheany Mout for your question. Indeed there is a growing body of evidence from around the world that women are differently – and tend to be more negatively – impacted from the arrival of extractive industries in their communities. This is usually a reflection of existing gender inequalities (division of labor and cultural norms that lower the status and authority of women relative to men), which are compounded by the stratification and social, environmental and economic pressures the industry can create.
The good news is, however, that there are many measures and approaches to ensure equitable distribution of benefits for women. From the beginning, the operator and the government can ensure that women’s voices are represented in all project consultations; that there is gender disaggregated data collection (for example, in impact assessments). Special efforts can be made to ensure that women are also adequately compensated for any land lost – even if land title is not held in their name, often they are the primary users of land. Any community investment projects should be designed in consultation with women to ensure that the interests of the whole community are captured. Local content policies (when operators agree/are required to purchase a portion of goods and services from local or national firms) can also be made gender sensitive by including a focus on promoting the involvement of women owned businesses and assisting with removing the barriers these enterprises often face through enhancing availability of start-up capital, training and quality control.
In terms of risk mitigation, again it is very important to capture the views and perspectives of women during initial public consultation, and to create a space that is culturally appropriate and safe for them to directly and openly communicate their concerns. Often, women do face the brunt of negative impacts, particularly any changes in their resource base, because their traditional roles in rural communities tend to revolve around land. Therefore it is important for the operator and government regulator to understand and map out current patterns of time and land use, and to put appropriate mitigation and compensation strategies in place as well as a grievance mechanism that women can access. Many companies now appoint gender officers as part of their community development team.
4:29 Comment From Dr. Ashish Manohar Urkude – India
First thought raised by women here in India is, are women getting same position same wage/ salary or not? Another point is are they made part of decision or not? What are Health, Safety, and other short and long term benefits and facilities they are getting?
4:29 Waafas Ofosu-Amaah:
Souleymane, thank you for your question. It is difficult to point to one bottleneck alone. The one you pointed out is a major one – and it goes to the issue of the overall governance of the extractives sector. But governance and transparency issue has gained significant attention, and there are several multi-stakeholder coalitions in countries to monitor and advocate for better contracts. See http://goxi.org/. However, there are also many other bottlenecks, including the lack of institutional capacity within many newly resource rich countries, and of course, the lack of understanding or appreciation of the gendered impacts of the extractives industries. Women can indeed reap benefits. But this can happen only if at all decision making levels (national, provincial and community) emphasis is placed on women’s access to resources (including, for example land, so that as landowners, they may have a right to negotiate with private sector industries operating in this sector) and voice (including women’s participation in decision making). And companies should be held to account to ensure that local job creation and social benefits actually occur during its operations. See a discussion on some of the main issues surrounding these different types of “value added” to the national economy from a recent online discussion on this topic. https://collaboration.worldbank.org/docs/DOC-6269
4:30 Katie Heller:
Hi! This is Katie Heller – a Social Development Specialist for the World Bank, participating in the face-to-face and Live Chat. We’re currently discussing Valentina Kaman’s question from PNG. ExxonMobil in PNG is already one of the leading advocates for empowering women in PNG and particularly in their footprint area, and is demonstrating how companies can be proactive partners to support women. In terms of supporting women to access the decision-making process, and having more say on benefits, we would love to see companies involved in negotiating this with government – for instance through their Memorandums of Agreement, to try to sustainably support women’s involvement in benefit sharing and decision-making.
4:30 Comment From aheuty
Waafas: following on your point, a challenge seems to be devising monitoring systems for the agreements in real time- and ensuring women can fully participate in these processes. Any experience you can share on that?
4:31 Jen Scott:
@Dr Ashish yes, good question. The gender discrepancy in wages within the workforce for the sector is unfortunately a pattern the world over. Because of barriers faced much earlier in life in accessing opportunities to complete their education – and also because of cultural prejudices that often prevent women from entering technical work – women may not be able to compete for the higher paid professional jobs created by the industry; often these go to highly qualified outsiders. Conditions for manual work may be very unpleasant and women may encounter harassment and hostility on entering a male dominated workforce. The operator’s policies are very important in this area and there are many constructive things that can be done. For example instituting a zero tolerance policy on any form of sexual harassment; ensuring that there are facilities on site for women (separate showers, toilets, accommodation, security); allowing maternity and paternity leave; providing childcare or crèche facilities. Training and mentoring programs within the workforce for women as well as men can be helpful to provide support to women, in recognition of the fact that they are entering a male dominated sector and often doing so while balancing many other responsibilities. In terms of health and safety, this is an area that most quality operators are now taking very seriously, for both men and women. It is also the government’s responsibility to ensure that concessions or licenses are awarded to quality operators, and that there is a strict regulatory regime that they are required to abide by.
4:32 Adriana Eftimie:
Hi Arin. Thank you for your question. Companies can be key agents of gender improvement in the community:
§- Engagement with women and support to women’s activities –mining companies set up a gender desk to work with women groups and association and directed some of the resources to women’s led programs – PNG
§- Improved community relations – women are key in conflict resolution and ensuring a peaceful relationship with the company – participation in key decision making is critical – Ghana
§- Effective and efficient social investment- companies found the women led programs they invested in more efficient and effective. Women also came at negotiation of benefit packages with an action plan as compare with the wish list landowners representatives (all men) presented.- PNG
§- Improved workforce – having more women in workforce proved to be beneficial for a mining company because the cost of maintenance of machines and vehicles operated by women went down, there is less absenteeism and accidents – Australia, Chile, South Africa
Some useful resources:
Companion piece for the gender and EI in Peru – a guide of good practice, http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTOGMC/Resources/24-web-REDS.pdf
Investing in Women’s Employment: Good for Business, Good for Development, http://ifcext.ifc.org/IFCExt/pressroom/IFCPressRoom.nsf/0/B184FCE7FDD3019F85257C0200551990?OpenDocument
Women on boards
http://www.ifc.org/wps/wcm/connect/Topics_Ext_Content/IFC_External_Corporate_Site/Corporate+Governance/Focus+Areas/
Women in Mining: A guide to integrate women into the workforce:
http://imagebank.worldbank.org/servlet/WDSContentServer/IW3P/IB/2011/06/22/000333037_20110622004914/Rendered/PDF/626590WP0Women00Box0361488B0PUBLIC0.pdf
4:32 Comment From a_guerramarin
@Jen Scott A lot of talk regarding women in the EI focuses in changing their economy. They have the lowest jobs (like rewashing contaminated tailings) and a lot of organizations way of helping them is to tend to try to change their economy, and move it to agriculture, etc. Is there a way that women can practice mining along with men?
4:34 Waafas Ofosu-Amaah:
Thanks, Aheuty. I agree that monitoring is important. You may want to look at the toolkit that was developed by the World Bank team (Gender dimensions of extractives industies), but other institutions also have several examples. Look at www.worldbank.org/gender and open the gender and extractives link.
4:36 Comment From Ana Maria Azcarraga – Thailand
What is violence against women situation in areas where there is mining development? What kind of violence occur? What is bring done? Are there security issues that women are more vulnerable than men?
Katie Heller:
Hi Ana Maria – Our research has shown that there is often an increase in women’s vulnerability to gender-based violence (GBV) in extractives communities. Changes in the community structure – an influx of workers, for instance; increased access to cash resources which may mean more prostitution, alcoholism, taking of second wives and families, etc – these are just a few of the drivers we’ve seen in terms of GBV. Women involved in working in the sector are also often vulnerable – for instance, women working underground may be vulnerable, or women trying to sell food or other goods to miners may find themselves particularly vulnerable to sexual assault. In terms of what is being done – in Papua New Guinea, for example, we are working with a local program that aims to establish local, multi-stakeholder committees to raise awareness on laws, judicial response, and health services to prevent and help victims of GBV. In other countries, studies are being done on what sort of awareness raising and services for women might make them less vulnerable to GBV while they try to engage in the sector.
4:37 Comment From Areli Valencia – Canada
This is an important initiative. My concern is, however, that it seems to presuppose that communities, and women within them, should look at mining-led development as the best economic alternative to secure their wellbeing. There are, indeed, communities that aspire to different ways of living. Moreover, there are communities in which women already have economic autonomy (i.e. they are in charge of farming plots for subsistence and livelihoods). In those cases, the presence of mining rather than an opportunity to enhancing their freedoms, it arises as a threat to displace their local economies. There are various women anti-mining organizations in Latin America raising this type of concerns (e.g. Women Defenders of Pachamama and Women Guardians of the Amazon, both in Ecuador). My question is: To what extent your research takes into consideration this type of reality?
4:38 Comment From Luis Egocheaga Young – Peru
1. How can the formalization of illegal extractive activities help to empowerment of women? 2. Because of cultural atavism and absurd regulations, in Peru and many other fishing countries, women are marginalized of artisanal fisheries; how can this situation be improved?
4:38 Adriana Eftimie:
@Luis
1. Artisanal and small scale mining (ASM) is an income generating activity, a livelihood for communities living in a resource rich area. Both men and women will participate in this activity, however most of the time women involvement is invisible as it takes place more in the domestic sphere and control and ownership of most assets is held by men. Formalization helps recognize the role women play in ASM and support their access to extended services and benefits. It is not happening by default, gender sensitive legal framework has to be in place to make sure that the women’s roles in ASM are fully acknowledged.
Resources: Gender and ASM toolkit: http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTEXTINDWOM/Resources/toolkit-web1.pdf
2. I am not an expert on artisanal fisheries; however the approach we take in ASM may be adapted.
4:38 Jen Scott:
@a_guerramarin Yes, I think this is an important point. I don’t see why not, honestly. It happens in places like Australia and Canada, so why not in other parts of the world too? As one mining executive said to me, “manual, heavy work is not just dirty and unpleasant for women – it’s dirty unpleasant and unhealthy for everyone!”. The key is to create a workplace environment that is well managed in terms of health and safety, and that encourages diversity in the workforce (on a meritocratic basis) and to have gender smart hiring and retention policies that recognize and actively work to remove barriers to women. In particular not to tolerate any hostility or discrimination or harassment.
4:38 Comment From Carla Martinez – Chile
I would like to know if you could provide us with an example of best practice of both government regulation and corporate behaviour that address through their social impact assessment a gender perspective as well as their CSR or sustainable development practice. I currently engage in WIMLATAM – a collaborative project of woman in mining in latin america. We are developing a number of workshops and guides to incorporate a gender approach to employment in mining, participation and engagement and to the development of social impact assessments. We would love to hear if you know about good practice cases.
4:39 Comment From Guest
Hi! I’m Vanessa Lopes Janik from the Energy Sector Management Assistance Program (ESMAP) and I work on Gender and Social Inclusion within Energy programs. We are currently developing a study on Gender and Electricity Infrastructure (Generation, Transmission and Distribution) with an initial focus on gender impacts of this infrastructure on Land and Labor. There are many lessons to learn from the gender and mining practice so I am very interested in this live chat discussion.
4:39 Adriana Eftimie:
@Carla. Thank you for your question. One good practice example is the case of PNG – Women participation in negotiation of benefits package – Ok Tedi mine – the company made sure that women are represented into negotiations. The legislation is being change to include the requirement of women participation into negotiations of benefits packages. As a result of their participation, women obtained 10% of the proceeds of the community development fund to go towards women led programs.
Resources:“We want what the Ok Tedi Women Have”, http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/242801468057856994/pdf/724410Revised00l70Issue209020012web.pdf
Negotiating with PNG Mining Industry for Women’s Access to Resources and Voice, http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/395711468147548100/Executive-summary
4:39 Comment From Mil Niepold
Several of these comments have pointed to the need for women to have a place at the negotiating table. In your experience, do these women in mining communities have the negotiation training they need to confidently and successfully participate in negotiations?
4:41 Comment From Guest
Hi – this is Vanessa Lopes Janik – from the World Bank’s Energy Sector Management Assistance Program (ESMAP) – I work on Gender and Social Inclusion within the Energy Sector. Interested in learning from participants as we are carrying out a study on Gender and Electricity Infrastructure to try to understand the gender impacts of generation, transmission and distribution. Land and labor issues will be our starting points – and there are many lessons to learn from the Gender and Mining community!
4:41 Adriana Eftimie:
@ Vanessa. Thank you for your comment
4:42 Comment From Raj Bardouille
Access to resources for women, especially in African countries, is a major obstacle for their economic empowerment. How can traditional customs that disempower women in relation to their independent access to economic resources be removed in the context of modern and democratic societies in Africa?
4:43 Comment From Abraham Jacobo
Hello! Usually, mines are settled far away from important cities, laying on small communities and villages where topics and ideas against women integration on labour issues are hard to overcome.
4:44 Comment From a_guerramarin
@Jen Scott, thank you. I completely agree. Have you found ways to bring this to the table or are there any case studies that you know? I know of artisanal mining communities in Mongolia that have women groups. But I haven’t found ways to bring this into the conversation. I work with artisanal gold miners, I’m a geologist. And sometimes I find that a lot of organizations prefer to just transfer the women to a more safer economy (with less pay), and I’m trying to find ways to include them in the economy.
4:44 Waafas Ofosu-Amaah:
Thanks, Mil. Absolutely. In the case of the PNG situatioin with the Ok Tedi report, the women leaders did receive training, and they got assistance from independent facilitators. HOWEVER, we know that the training alone is not enought – there is a lot that needs to happen with confidence building, etc. Remember, these women are required to interact with big industries, and powerful executives. So definitely, training and capacity building are absolutely essential
4:45 Comment From Vanessa Janik – ESMAP
Is there any guidance from the expert panel or from fellow participants on how to include women and youth in the new job creation that takes place due to the mining projects? It doesnt necessarily mean women in mining jobs – but more broadly speaking there are many indirect markets and laborforces that open due to roads and services entering communities. Are there good practicies in ensuring these opportunities are inclusive of women and youth?
4:45 Comment From Gabriel Deussom
The biggest problem is the regulatory framework. In the DRC, for example more than 80% of mining is done through artisanal mining. Artisanal and small scale mining is ill-regulated. As a result, human rights violations and slavery is pervasive. Women are marginalized and exploited (forced prostitution, sexual slavery). There is a need for a strong and transparent regulation to empower women.
4:46 Comment From KarlaD
Is there evidence that shows the extent to which women who gain negotiating power in companies extend this bargaining power to the household level?
4:49 Comment From Guest
Since the large majority of women in the mining industry in Africa are in artisanal and small scale mining;
4:50 Comment From Jane Sprouster
I would like to add to Mil Niepold’s comment and note that the men involved in negotiating also require gender sensitive training in order to facilitate (or at least not block) women’s voices at the negotiating table. Is this a common practice when conducting empowerment training in EI?
4:50 Jen Scott:
@areil yes, I agree. When land owners or communities in areas of natural resource wealth decide that they do not want the industry and would prefer to pursue their own development path. This is often true of indigenous communities who have very little integration into the mainstream economy and whose cultural identities may differ from that of the non-indigenous society. In some countries landowners are also resource owners, so they have much more leverage in negotiations – however in most places, sub-soil resources are regarded as the property of the state, in a legal sense at least. In my experience however, if communities are dead set against the industry proceeding from the start – and remain so after extensive consultation and offers of benefit sharing – then the government has to seriously evaluate the risks of proceeding with the development (conflict may erupt as has happened throughout much of South America) and consider whether it is better in fact to leave the resources in the ground. This can often be a very difficult choice to make, but important lessons from history tell us that ultimately proceeding with mining or oil and gas development when the community is not on board may end up being more costly than it is beneficial.
4:51 Adriana Eftimie:
@Vanessa. Inclusion of women and youth in value chain of EI proves to be very beneficial from the community development perspective. There are challenges and obstacles that would need to be overcome – e.g acces to finance, capacity building and training that for women, due to cultural norms may be very challenging. Most important aspect is to identify the market opportunities both directly with the extractive companies or more broader.
4:51 Waafas Ofosu-Amaah:
Karla: Some of the qualitative evidence from the World Bank’s Norms and Agency report of focus groups shows that because women are more involved in leadership responsibiities and have more control over resources, do not have any power at home. But none of this is linked directly to the extractives industries. In the example from PNG, the women leaders interviewed reported respect in the communitiy, but there is no evidence that this translates into greater autonomy in the home. This is obviously a topic for further research.
4:53 Comment From Caroline
1. How can we transform women from artisanal small-scale miners to commercially viable small scale mining operators? 2. How can we support the creation of a local economy that will harness the potential of the seasonal artisanal small scale miners? 3. How can artisanal small-scale mining be transformed into a tool for sustainable inclusive development? Are there any emerging good practices on these?
4:54 Adriana Eftimie:
@Caroline 1. Providing them support to overcome barriers for developing a small scale mining business: access to finance, capacity building, training. This may involve some changes to ASM legal framework and sensitization of men in the community to partner and support women enterprises. 2. ASM is a livelihood and an income generating activity. It should be considered as part of local development framework developed by the government and provided with extension services – training, capacity building, access to technology, etc 3. Be formalized, have access to extension services, have financial facilities in place that ASM miners can access to improve their technology.
4:55 Comment From Katherine Doyle
Loved the 2013 Gender and Extractive Industries calendar but would be interested to hear an explicit course of action that would ensure safety and support for women who wish to work within the field. How do you plan to address the need for childcare, for transport, alternatives for minors in the field?
4:56 Comment From Guest
What kinds of trainings have you seen that have most helped women be better leaders in their communities? What more do these women need?
4:57 Katie Heller:
@Jane Sprouster, @Mil – Thanks for this question. A few thoughts – yes, it is critical that when we are working with communities on empowering women to be more involved in negotiations, and also to have the skills to be more economically and socially empowered and involved in the industry and related industries, we need to work with men too, to ensure that women have the space to be fully involved. In PNG for example, in our training programs for women, we include men as well to both ensure that there isnt a sense that only women are benefitting, and also so that men understand the objective of the programs, and see them as for the community benefit. In PNG, we also have a program around adolescent girls empowerment in EI communities, and we are actually making this program around adolescent boys and girls – the only way to create an opportunity for empowerment and equality for young women is to create this increased sense of equality between men and women. But another point on this, in terms of negotiations specifically, we need to work with men and women so that we’re not approaching this as ‘zero-sum negotiaing’ between men and women – we need to help men see women as part of a negotiation for the whole community to benefit.
4:59 Waafas Ofosu-Amaah:
katherine It’s a huge HR issue, and companies need to have these incoporated into their policies. BUT, the it also is a national policy issue. Government need to reinforce this. Even if companies attract new employees because of such policies on childcare, transport, etc., it is also important to monitor staff turnover, especially female staff, in order to be able to answer the question, if gender-sensitive policies allow a company to not only attract female employees, BUT to retain them. Therefore, monitoring is important
5:01 Comment From Abraham Jacobo
Hello! Usually mines are settled on remote locations (villages or communities) where there are several “anti-women” attitudes from the men (macho). Can you tell us about some of the best practices that can be implemented on those communities in order to provide development opportunities for the women? It has not got to be only offering jobs in the mining process / administration but development programs that might empower women in the community and use the mining boom or inversions in that remote location as spillover effects on creating more opportunities.
5:08 Comment From Betty Ann Chung – Tanzania
I work with the Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development Canada, supporting our development programming in Tanzania and would like to share some thoughts from the Tanzania Women Miners Association (TAWOMA):
1. How can women benefit from the extractive industries?
- Give them an opportunity to own mining plots, mining rights
- Avail them with machinery to add value to their minerals
- Make it easy for them to access finance without a need for collateral because land and house ownership laws have historically discriminated against women, it is not easy for them to have collateral.
2. How can we reduce risks? The risks are: mining safety, sexually transmitted diseases in the mining sites, handling of extractive chemicals. These risks can be reduced by:
- Mining associations to be given an opportunity for self-improvement in mining knowledge,
- Mining associations to be empowered with grants and soft loans to do counselling to their fellow women miners,
- Training on safety standards, and easy access to women friendly safety gears
3. How can we provide better resources to women?
- Solve the problem of collateral in access to finance. Women are coming from a history of having no access to land and houses, and if they do, they mostly do so collectively with their spouses who are (most of the times) not willing to let their lands and houses be put forward by their wives as collateral.
- Women miners associations should be empowered to articulate the complex issues involving the extractive sector.
4. How can we provide better voice to women?
Women should affirmatively be given decision-making positions in national bodies, for example in Tanzania, women should be given a decision making position (like Board Members) in the State Mining Company (STAMICO) and similar avenues.
5. What are some of the approaches that offer lessons and strategies for more equitable distribution and decision-making over extractive resources?
- Credit Guarantee schemes targeting women miners
- Leasing machinery (it should be well structured to suit women’s dynamics)
- Grants to women’s associations to be able to mobilise themselves
5:10 Waafas Ofosu-Amaah:
Thanks, Mara. Success can be defined in different dimensions, right. Some countries and regions have good policies. Some, countries, like PNG, have done some ground breaking work on involving women in the negotiation process for mine benefits. See this example from PNG http://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/extractiveindustries/brief/gender-in-extractive-industries
5:10 Comment From Jacqueline Patterson – United States
How does mining impact the environment and are there any health costs for the workers?
5:10 Adriana Eftimie:
@Betty – Thank you for sharing some thoughts from TAWOMA. Much appreciated
5:11 Jen Scott:
@abraham Jacobo in terms of creating opportunities or benefits connected to the industry for women, we have seen success in Papua New Guinea through the use of training programs to augment skills of women and enable them to start generating income through activities that they are already familiar with – for example improved agricultural practices. Community investment projects that are designed to benefit the whole community should also include women’s views and priorities – for example clean water initiatives, provision of electricity or design of infrastructure (roads etc) that increases access to market for women who sell agricultural products.
5:12 Comment From UCHE
What effort is being made for women in these rejoin to get quality education in Geology and Mining
5:13 Comment From a_guerramarin
@Adriana: thank you very much
5:13 Katie Heller:
@Jacqueline – Thanks for your question. In terms of the health impacts for workers, the World Health Organization has been working on this – I know they were recently working on a study in Ghana and Mongolia.Unfortunately, I do not have a link for this study, but hopefully you may be able to find some work on their website. Also, regarding the environment, I would suggest looking at the ICMM website – http://www.icmm.com/ – I think they have some specific resources on this
5:14 Comment From Nathalie Pelletier, Canada
Thank you very much for this initiative. I wonder if there is any annual fora/gathering where gender matters in EI are regularly discussed, where good practices can be shared with others?
5:14 Waafas Ofosu-Amaah:
UCHE, that is a good question. I do not have an answer as I do not know of any special effort. We will look into it, and post this question on our online community of practice, the GFCoP. Here is a link.https://collaboration.worldbank.org/login.jspa
5:16 Comment From Gabriel Deussom
The conundrum how to effectively regulate the artisanal and small mining sector in order to reduce exploitation forms that artisanal miners and women especially are victims of. What successful model would you suggest to tackle the exploitation marginalization of women in this sector? Thanks. I am Gabriel Deussom in Washington, DC
5:16 Comment From Mil Niepold
I agree with Nathalie Pelletier’s idea of an annual forum of some kind. Perhaps a panel discussion at IFC’s Sustainablity Exchange? Or something else? Thank you for organizing this web chat!
5:17 Comment From Gaby Breton
Hi, I’m in development field working for NGO. One of the important point is how have been negotiated the royalty with the mining sector (how much is the %) and if have any mechanism for insure that a right % will go for women’s project.
5:17 Waafas Ofosu-Amaah:
@Nathalie, it would be good if this is interested into annual workshops like INDABA, but also UNWomen is also working on this and you may want to contact them.
5:18 Jen Scott:
@gabriel deusson yes I agree, and this is part of the work that the World Bank does around the world, through technical assistance with the policy and regulatory bodies responsible. The biggest difficulty is in enforcement of regulations, and implantation. It is slightly easier to mitigate risks in the large scale mining sector as the sites are more centralized and better organized, and the choice of operator can really help to ensure better management in terms of risks. But in the small scale mining sector the challenge is much greater. Civil society can play an important role, as well as media, to bring these issues of exploitation to public attention. In Peru there is also a very effective National Ombudsman’s office that has regional branches for people to approach with grievances.
5:19 Comment From Diane JapanRising Dreyfus
It seems to me that if women are to be written in as stakeholders it must be at the national level as part of permitting process. in Guatemala the indigenous voice is ignored causing bitterness and often rebellion. There needs to be a formula for exactions agreed upon worldwide.
5:19 Waafas Ofosu-Amaah:
Dear participants, thank you to all of you for this very interesting conversation. I’m sorry we were not able to respond to all the questons. But we do hope you enjoyed it!
The Live Chat is now getting to the end. We would like to invite to further discuss about this issue in the Gender Issues in Fragile Situations Community of Practice. You can post your ideas, comments or questions by clicking this link. And we promise to answer additional questions there. Here is the link. Thank you, and have a great rest of the day/evening.
https://collaboration.worldbank.org/login.jspa