Women’s Participation and Voice in the Mining Sector
There is a growing recognition that not only does the mining sector have different impacts on men and women, but that policy and governance responses to the sector also affect women and men differently.
Statistically, women and girls are more likely to suffer from the negative impacts related to mining, such as water and land pollution or lack of access to water and land, or security, safety and health threats related to increased populations of transient workers and job seekers, such as sexually transmitted diseases or sexual assaults.
The joint Swedish Environmental Protection Agency – UNDP Environmental Governance Programme (EGP), in partnership with the Intergovernmental Forum on Mining, Minerals, and Metals (IGF), are developing a training for decision-makers and practitioners on strengthening policy and regulatory responses to gender impacts linked to the mining sector. Following an interactive gender and mining session at the 14th Annual General Meeting of the IGF held in Geneva in 2018, it was clear that there was strong interest from governments to improve policy responses to gender impacts related to the mining sector.
In this context, the EGP organized a webinar on June 18, 2019, looking at how countries can strengthen the gender component of their response to mining, to improve development outcomes from the mining sector, drawing lessons from the experience with artisanal and small-scale gold and coal mining in Colombia. This webinar introduced initial concepts and topics from the training that is in development and sought feedback from participants on how the training can be refined and delivered most effectively.