Gender, Transformative Leadership & Extractive Industries
Date:
- The project on Gender, Transformative Leadership and Extractive Industries is premised on the understanding that Africa is experiencing exponential economic growth with varying gender impacts & inequalities in distribution of growth and incomes
- Africa’s economy is projected to grow at 5% in 2016 from 4.5% in 2015. This growth is largely attributed to Extractive Industries (EI)
- The continent possesses 10% of the world's oil reserves, 40% of which is gold, and no less than 95% of platinum group metals
- Despite this abundance of resources and the resulting socio-economic opportunities, women still experience inequalities and exclusion
- Structural and institutional weaknesses inherently put women at a disadvantage in areas such as legal rights to mining-related assets, access to capital and technology & respect for their basic rights to grow their EI related businesses and participate in large-scale mining activities
- The vicious cycle of poverty, low incomes, health hazards and negative environmental impacts drive the need for transformational leadership