Gender Perspectives on the Extractives Industry and its Effects on Women in West and Central Africa

Over a decade ago, artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) was projected to provide 13 to 20 million jobs worldwide, while a further 80-100 million people depended on it for their livelihoods. Today, ASM is the primary source of employment for at least 44.75 million people across 80 countries worldwide. While the global consensus has been to formalize ASM to streamline the sector into official sectors contributing to countries’ Gross Domestic Products (GDPs), Africa is lagging in such formalization. ASM is often perceived in a negative light because it is one of the drivers of environmental degradation and perceived to bring social ills in most mining communities. However, the Africa Mining Vision inspires a different perception and approach to ASM to ensure that it contributes to the formal development of mineral resource-rich countries in Africa.

From this data, it is evident that if formalized across Africa, ASM could make an immediate impact, such as economically empowering women and communities in the region. Women in the ASM sector in Africa play a significant but often overlooked role in the industry. However, despite their significant contributions, women in the ASM sector face intersecting and multi-layered challenges and vulnerabilities. They often lack access to resources, including land, finance, and technology, limiting their ability to engage in profitable mining activities. Moreover, they are more susceptible to exploitation, gender-based violence (GBV), and health hazards associated with mining work than their male counterparts. Access to resources is a socio-economic right for women, but this right is often violated. Various cases of human rights violations are observed across numerous countries in West and Central Africa.

This article delves into the profound, yet often unacknowledged, gendered impacts of the extractives industry, particularly ASM, on women in West and Central Africa. While the sector undeniably presents immense economic potential, its benefits are unevenly distributed, frequently exacerbating existing gender inequalities and human rights violations. We will explore the critical contributions of women, the myriad vulnerabilities they face, and how a gender-just approach to formalization, aligned with the Africa Mining Vision, is essential to transform this sector into a true engine of equitable development and empowerment.

The Réseau des Femmes Leaders pour le Développement (RFLD) engages in rigorous research and strategic advocacy to make visible the intersections of climate change, economic justice, and women’s rights within the mining and extractive sectors. RFLD’s work aims to challenge harmful practices prevalent in artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) and large-scale operations, including the exploitation of women, prevalence of gender-based violence (GBV), and systemic lack of access to resources like land, finance, and technology. By strengthening the capacity of women environmental defenders and community leaders, RFLD ensures that local women’s knowledge and needs inform broader policy formulation and accountability efforts, driving tangible change towards more equitable and dignified participation in the extractives value chain.

Artisanal and Small-Scale Mining (ASM) stands as a formidable economic force across the globe, especially in the Global South. Its sheer scale is staggering: providing direct employment for over 44.75 million individuals worldwide and supporting the livelihoods of an estimated 80-100 million people. In West and Central Africa, this sector is not merely a supplementary activity but, for many, the primary source of survival, a critical informal safety net in contexts marked by high unemployment, limited formal sector opportunities, and widespread poverty.

The economic rationale for women’s extensive involvement in ASM is straightforward yet complex. Driven by dire poverty, lack of alternative income-generating activities, and often lacking formal education or skills for other sectors, women are drawn to ASM sites as a means to feed their families and secure a livelihood. The informal nature of much of the ASM sector, ironically, allows for easier entry for women who might otherwise face insurmountable barriers to formal employment due to discriminatory practices, lack of credentials, or social norms that restrict their mobility. They engage in various roles, from direct mining activities to providing crucial support services around mining communities.

Despite its informal status, ASM injects significant cash flow into local economies, creating micro-economies around mining sites. It funds schools, healthcare, and basic necessities for millions of families who have few other options. This immediate, albeit often precarious, economic empowerment is a powerful draw. The potential of ASM, if approached strategically, is therefore undeniable. It holds the promise of not just alleviating poverty but truly driving local economic development.

However, ASM is frequently perceived in a negative light, primarily associated with environmental degradation (such as deforestation, soil erosion, and mercury contamination), social ills (like crime, prostitution, and health crises), and conflicts. While these challenges are indeed prevalent, it is crucial to recognize that many of these negative outcomes are exacerbated by the very informality, lack of regulation, and socio-economic vulnerabilities that characterize the sector, rather than being inherent to mining itself. The absence of formalization often means poor safety standards, unchecked environmental practices, and limited access to basic services, creating a vicious cycle of marginalization and harm. The global consensus to formalize ASM is thus not just about economic streamlining but also about mitigating these harms and unlocking its transformative potential. This vision is profoundly echoed and amplified by the Africa Mining Vision (AMV), which seeks to reframe ASM as a contributor to formal, sustainable development, a goal that cannot be achieved without addressing its gendered dimensions.

Despite the pervasive negative perceptions of ASM and the myriad challenges within it, women play a profoundly significant, yet consistently overlooked and undervalued, role in the industry across West and Central Africa. Their contributions are multifaceted, spanning direct participation in mining to sustaining the entire ecosystem around mining sites. This invisibility stems from deeply ingrained patriarchal norms, the informal nature of their work, and a systematic exclusion from formal recognition and decision-making processes.

In direct mining activities, women often perform some of the most arduous and hazardous tasks. They are heavily involved in ore crushing, typically by hand using rudimentary tools, a back-breaking and often dangerous activity that exposes them to dust, silica, and other airborne particles, leading to severe respiratory problems. They participate in ore washing and processing, frequently involving the use of toxic chemicals like mercury and cyanide for gold amalgamation, without adequate protective gear. This direct exposure to chemicals has severe long-term health consequences, particularly for their reproductive health. Women also play a crucial role in transportation, carrying heavy loads of ore, water, and equipment, often for long distances under harsh conditions. While men may operate machinery, women are often the “unseen hands” performing the manual labor that keeps the chain moving.

Beyond direct extraction, women are indispensable to the support services that sustain mining communities. They are the primary providers of food vending, cooking and selling meals to miners; they supply water (often hauled from distant sources); they manage basic sanitation; and they offer care services to the transient and often neglected mining populations, including nursing the sick and caring for children at makeshift sites. Many women engage in trading, buying minerals from small-scale miners and selling them to larger dealers, often at exploitative rates due to their limited market access and bargaining power. In some contexts, due to economic desperation, women may also be coerced or choose to engage in sex work around mining sites, providing a critical but deeply vulnerable service to a largely male workforce.

Furthermore, women are central to community sustenance and social cohesion. Amidst the highly volatile and often chaotic environment of mining boomtowns, it is women who often maintain what little family and community structures exist. They manage households, raise children, and provide essential social services in the absence of adequate state provision. Their resilience in navigating economic uncertainties, providing basic needs, and preserving cultural practices often goes unrecognized, yet it is fundamental to the very existence of these mining communities.

The very nature of these roles, often informal, precarious, and labor-intensive, renders women’s contributions largely invisible in official statistics and policy discussions. Because they are often not directly involved in the actual digging or extraction of minerals from the ground, or because their work is classified as “informal” or “support,” their economic value is systematically overlooked. This patriarchal lens, coupled with the lack of formal recognition, means women are excluded from mining associations, cooperative leadership, and policy-making tables. Their voices are silenced, their needs ignored, and their immense contributions remain largely uncounted, thereby perpetuating a cycle of marginalization despite their vital role in the extractives value chain.

Despite their significant contributions, women in the extractives industry in West and Central Africa face a complex web of intersecting and multi-layered challenges and vulnerabilities. These challenges are deeply rooted in patriarchal structures, socio-economic inequalities, and the inherent risks of the mining sector, often exacerbated by its informal nature. Their experiences are characterized by a systematic violation of their human rights, particularly their socio-economic rights and their right to bodily integrity.

1. Lack of Access to Resources

One of the most fundamental barriers women face is the pervasive lack of access to and control over critical resources:

• Land: In many West and Central African countries, customary land tenure systems often discriminate against women, limiting their ability to own, inherit, or control land independently. This is particularly problematic in mining areas where land is a crucial asset for both agricultural livelihoods and mining activities. When large-scale mining operations acquire land, women farmers are often disproportionately displaced without adequate compensation or alternative livelihoods, as their land rights are not formally recognized. In ASM, women struggle to secure mining plots or concessions, often relegated to less productive, more hazardous areas.
• Finance: Women in ASM face immense difficulties accessing formal credit, loans, or banking services. They are often deemed high-risk by financial institutions due to lack of collateral, formal identification, or literacy. This forces them to rely on informal, high-interest lenders, perpetuating cycles of debt and exploitation. This lack of capital severely limits their ability to invest in better equipment, improve their techniques, or scale up their operations, trapping them in low-profit activities.
• Technology & Skills: Women are consistently excluded from training programs in modern mining techniques, geological knowledge, or equipment operation. They typically use rudimentary tools, perpetuating reliance on arduous, inefficient, and dangerous manual labor. This technological gap keeps them in the lowest rungs of the value chain, further reducing their income and increasing health risks.
• Information: Access to information about mineral prices, market trends, legal regulations, and safer mining practices is often controlled by male networks, leaving women at a significant disadvantage in bargaining and decision-making.

2. Exploitation and Precarious Work Conditions

Women in the extractives sector are highly susceptible to various forms of exploitation, characteristic of precarious informal work:

• Low Wages and Unfair Payments: Women often earn significantly less than men for performing similar or even more strenuous tasks. In mineral trading, due to their limited market access and lack of transparency, they are frequently paid unfair prices for the minerals they sell. Payments can be delayed or withheld, pushing them into further economic distress.
• Unsafe Working Conditions: They are consistently exposed to hazardous working conditions, including unstable pits, rockfalls, and the direct handling of toxic chemicals like mercury and cyanide without adequate protective equipment. This directly contributes to a high incidence of accidents and long-term health problems.
• Lack of Social Protection: As informal workers, women in ASM are almost entirely excluded from formal social protection schemes such as health insurance, pensions, and unemployment benefits, leaving them incredibly vulnerable to illness, injury, and old age poverty.
• Child Labor: The economic desperation in mining communities often forces children, particularly girls, into labor to support their families. Girls may assist their mothers in crushing ore, washing, or providing support services, denying them education and exposing them to the same hazards as adults.

3. Gender-Based Violence (GBV)

Mining communities, often transient, isolated, and characterized by high levels of masculinity, alcohol/drug use, and economic disparity, are hotspots for gender-based violence:

• Sexual Violence and Harassment: Women and girls, especially those engaged in food vending, trading, or sex work around mining sites, are at extremely high risk of sexual harassment, assault, and rape. The practice of “sex-for-gold” or transactional sex is tragically common, where women and girls are coerced into sexual acts in exchange for access to mining sites, employment, or basic necessities.
• Intimate Partner Violence: The economic stress, transient nature of relationships, and prevalence of substance abuse in mining communities can exacerbate intimate partner violence, creating an unsafe home environment for women.
• Sexual Exploitation of Children: Young girls, sometimes as young as 10 or 12, are highly vulnerable to sexual exploitation, often by older male miners or middlemen, perpetuating cycles of abuse and trauma.
• Lack of Reporting and Impunity: The remote nature of many mining sites, combined with weak law enforcement, lack of protective services, and prevailing social norms that silence survivors, leads to massive underreporting of GBV. Perpetrators often act with impunity, reinforcing a culture of violence.

4. Health Hazards

The direct engagement in hazardous tasks and the exposure to toxic environments lead to severe health consequences for women:

• Chemical Poisoning: Direct exposure to mercury during gold amalgamation can cause severe neurological damage, kidney failure, skin lesions, and reproductive health issues, including miscarriages, stillbirths, and birth defects in children. Cyanide exposure, though less common in ASM, also poses significant risks.
• Respiratory Diseases: Prolonged inhalation of dust and silica from ore crushing and processing leads to silicosis, tuberculosis, and other chronic respiratory illnesses.
• Musculoskeletal Injuries: The strenuous manual labor, heavy lifting, and repetitive movements result in severe musculoskeletal injuries, chronic pain, and disabilities.
• Reproductive Health Issues: Beyond chemical exposure, poor sanitation, lack of access to clean water, and the absence of basic healthcare services contribute to high rates of reproductive tract infections, complications during pregnancy, and maternal mortality.
• HIV/AIDS and STIs: The transient nature of mining populations, combined with increased transactional sex, creates a heightened risk environment for the transmission of HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted infections.
• Lack of Access to Healthcare: Mining areas are often remote, with limited or no access to basic healthcare facilities, emergency services, or specialized care for mining-related illnesses or GBV.

5. Broad Human Rights Violations

Beyond the specific vulnerabilities, women in the extractives industry experience a range of human rights violations:

• Violation of Socio-Economic Rights: Their right to adequate livelihood, health, education for their children, and decent work are routinely violated.
• Forced Displacement: Women and their families are often forcibly displaced from their ancestral lands to make way for large-scale mining operations, without adequate consultation, compensation, or resettlement plans, leading to loss of livelihoods and social networks.
• Suppression of Dissent: Women who attempt to organize, advocate for their rights, or protest environmental degradation often face intimidation, threats, or violence, suppressing their fundamental right to freedom of assembly and expression.
• Lack of Legal Recourse: The informal nature of their work, combined with corruption, weak judicial systems, and gender bias within legal institutions, means women have limited access to justice or effective remedies for rights violations.

These intersecting vulnerabilities create a vicious cycle where economic marginalization pushes women into dangerous informal mining, where they face exploitation and violence, leading to further health degradation and disempowerment. Addressing these challenges requires a comprehensive, gender-responsive approach that fundamentally reconfigures power dynamics within the extractives sector.

The pursuit of gender justice in the extractives industry in Francophone Africa is firmly grounded in a comprehensive framework of international and regional human rights instruments. The Maputo Protocol (Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa) is paramount, explicitly guaranteeing women’s rights to a healthy environment, sustainable development, and comprehensive protection from violence and exploitation, all of which are severely compromised in extractive contexts. The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), with its broad mandates on eliminating discrimination in economic life, employment, and rural areas, provides a powerful global standard for ensuring women’s equitable access to and control over land and natural resources, and their participation in environmental and economic decision-making. Furthermore, UN Security Council Resolution 1325 (UNSCR 1325) on Women, Peace, and Security, while often associated with conflict, underscores the critical role of women’s protection from violence and their participation in peacebuilding and post-conflict recovery, which frequently involve equitable resource management. Other relevant instruments include ILO Conventions (e.g., on decent work, health and safety in mines, and informal economy), the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), and the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. These frameworks collectively provide legal leverage for advocates demanding accountability from governments and corporations for the human rights violations faced by women in the extractives sector.

The pervasive negative perceptions surrounding ASM are often accurate, detailing its role as a driver of environmental degradation and a catalyst for social ills in mining communities. However, these challenges are deeply intertwined with its informal, unregulated nature. The Africa Mining Vision (AMV), adopted by African Heads of State in 2009, offers a transformative counter-narrative, inspiring a different perception and approach to ASM. The AMV envisions a transparent, equitable, and optimally exploited African mineral sector that is “knowledge-driven, uses state-of-the-art technology, and is an engine for sustainable growth and development.” Crucially, it emphasizes inclusivity and local beneficiation, a vision that cannot be truly realized without a robust gender lens.

The global consensus leans towards formalizing ASM to streamline the sector into official economies, recognizing its potential to contribute significantly to countries’ GDPs. Yet, Africa is lagging in such formalization efforts. Where formalization initiatives do exist, they often suffer from a critical flaw: they are predominantly male-centric, failing to recognize, validate, or formalize women’s distinct roles and contributions. These efforts typically focus on the “mining” aspects traditionally performed by men (e.g., digging, blasting, direct extraction), while overlooking women’s crucial roles in crushing, processing, trading, and providing support services. This exclusion inadvertently pushes women further into the margins of the informal sector, perpetuating their vulnerabilities even as the sector attempts to “legitimize” itself.

A truly gender-responsive approach to formalization, aligned with the transformative spirit of the AMV, would look dramatically different. It would recognize that “if formalized across Africa, ASM could make an immediate impact such as economically empowering women and communities in the region.” This requires a conscious and deliberate effort to integrate women’s specific needs and contributions into every stage of the formalization process:

• Secure Land Tenure for Women Miners: Formalization must ensure that women have recognized and secure rights to mining plots and land for related activities. This means challenging discriminatory customary laws and implementing policies that explicitly grant women land ownership and tenure security, moving beyond male-dominated land allocation processes.
• Access to Gender-Sensitive Finance: Formalization must include mechanisms for women to access affordable credit, loans, and financial literacy training. This could involve creating specific micro-finance schemes tailored for women in ASM, establishing women’s cooperatives, and simplifying application processes to overcome barriers like lack of collateral or formal identification.
• Equitable Training and Technology Transfer: Formalization programs must actively include women in training on safer, more efficient, and environmentally friendly mining techniques. This includes training on the safe use of chemicals, alternative processing methods, and operating modern equipment. This would not only improve their productivity and income but also significantly reduce their exposure to health hazards.
• Inclusion of Women in Mining Cooperatives and Decision-Making Bodies: Formalization should explicitly mandate and support women’s active participation and leadership in mining cooperatives, associations, and local governance structures. This ensures their voices are heard in decision-making processes, from resource allocation to safety regulations, and that their priorities are reflected in formal policies.
• Development of Gender-Sensitive Health and Safety Regulations: Beyond general mining safety, formalization must incorporate specific health and safety measures that address the unique risks faced by women. This includes access to protective personal equipment (PPE) designed for women, pre- and post-natal care at mining sites, and robust health monitoring for chemical exposure.
• Measures to Prevent and Respond to GBV within Formalization Frameworks: Formalization should integrate explicit provisions for preventing and responding to GBV. This could involve codes of conduct for mining sites, accessible reporting mechanisms, safe spaces for women, and collaboration with law enforcement to ensure prosecution of perpetrators. It recognizes that safety from violence is a precondition for dignified work.
• Support for Women’s Leadership in the Sector: Beyond participation, formalization should actively foster and invest in women’s leadership. This means creating pathways for women to take on managerial, supervisory, and entrepreneurial roles within the formalized ASM sector, transforming them into key decision-makers and innovators.

By adopting this comprehensive, gender-responsive approach, formalization under the spirit of the AMV can move beyond merely streamlining economic activity to becoming a powerful tool for economic empowerment and gender justice. It recognizes that investing in women in ASM is not just an ethical imperative but a strategic necessity for the sustainable and inclusive development of mineral resource-rich countries in West and Central Africa.

Transforming the extractives industry in West and Central Africa into a sector that champions gender justice requires concerted and collaborative action from governments, civil society, mining companies, and international partners. The pathways to this gender-just transformation are multifaceted, demanding both policy reform and grassroots empowerment.

1. Policy and Legal Reform:

• Gender-Responsive Mining Laws: Enact and enforce national mining laws that explicitly recognize women’s rights and roles in all segments of the extractives value chain, including ASM. These laws must mandate gender disaggregated data collection, allocate resources for women-specific programs, and ensure women’s representation in all mining governance structures.
• Secure Land Tenure for Women: Reform customary and statutory land laws to guarantee women’s equal rights to own, inherit, and control land, especially in mining-affected areas. Implement transparent land acquisition and compensation processes that prioritize women’s livelihoods and ensure their meaningful participation.
• Criminalize All Forms of GBV: Strengthen criminal codes to explicitly criminalize all forms of gender-based violence, including sexual harassment, sexual exploitation, and all forms of sexual assault within and around mining sites. Ensure that marital rape is prosecutable.
• Ensure Access to Justice: Invest in training for police, prosecutors, and judges on gender-sensitive approaches to VAWG. Establish easily accessible and survivor-centric reporting mechanisms, legal aid, and protection services for women and girls in mining communities.

2. Economic Empowerment and Livelihood Diversification:

• Dedicated Funds for Women in ASM: Create and adequately resource national and regional funds specifically for women in ASM, providing affordable credit, grants, and business development support to enable them to invest in better equipment and processes.
• Facilitate Access to Markets: Support women’s cooperatives and associations to access fair and transparent markets for their minerals, reducing their vulnerability to exploitative middlemen. Provide training in value addition (e.g., jewelry making from gold) to increase their income.
• Promote Diversification: Invest in sustainable alternative livelihood opportunities for women in mining communities, reducing their sole reliance on the precarious and hazardous mining sector. This includes support for agriculture, small businesses, and vocational training in other sectors.

3. Health and Safety:

• Implement Gender-Sensitive Health Programs: Develop and implement comprehensive health programs in mining communities that specifically address women’s unique health risks, including reproductive health, maternal care, HIV/AIDS prevention, mental health services, and treatment for chemical exposure.
• Provide Protective Equipment and Training: Ensure women have access to and are trained in the use of appropriate personal protective equipment (PPE) for all mining-related tasks, especially where chemicals are involved.
• Regulate Chemical Use: Strictly regulate the use of hazardous chemicals like mercury and promote cleaner, mercury-free mining technologies, providing training and support for their adoption by women miners.

4. GBV Prevention and Response:

• Establish Safe Spaces: Create and support safe spaces, shelters, and community-based protection mechanisms for women and girls at risk of or experiencing GBV in mining areas.
• Robust Reporting and Referral Mechanisms: Develop confidential, survivor-centered, and accessible reporting mechanisms for GBV, linked to immediate support services (medical, psychosocial, legal) and pathways to justice.
• Community Engagement: Engage traditional leaders, religious institutions, and male allies in comprehensive prevention programs that challenge patriarchal norms, promote positive masculinities, and foster community accountability for GBV.
• Prosecute Perpetrators: Ensure that perpetrators of GBV are held accountable through effective investigation and prosecution, sending a clear message that violence will not be tolerated.

5. Capacity Building and Leadership:

• Training and Mentorship: Provide targeted training for women in mining techniques, financial literacy, entrepreneurial skills, leadership development, and human rights awareness. Establish mentorship programs connecting experienced women in the sector with newcomers.
• Support Women’s Organizations: Strengthen the institutional capacity and financial sustainability of women’s rights organizations and feminist groups working on extractives and gender justice.
• Promote Women’s Leadership: Actively support and facilitate women’s participation and leadership in mining associations, cooperatives, community committees, and all levels of governance related to the extractives sector.

6. Data and Research:

• Invest in Gender-Disaggregated Data: Systematically collect, analyze, and disseminate gender-disaggregated data on all aspects of the extractives industry, including employment, income, health impacts, GBV prevalence, and access to resources. This data is crucial for evidence-based policymaking and advocacy.
• Feminist Participatory Research: Support feminist researchers and women’s groups to conduct participatory action research that documents women’s lived experiences, traditional knowledge, and agency in the extractives sector, providing nuanced insights that inform advocacy.

7. Advocacy and Accountability:

• Strengthen Advocacy Coalitions: Foster stronger coalitions between women’s rights organizations, environmental justice groups, labor unions, and human rights defenders to collectively advocate for gender-just extractives policies.
• Hold Corporations Accountable: Pressure mining companies to adopt gender-responsive policies, conduct gender impact assessments, establish robust GBV prevention and response mechanisms, and ensure fair labor practices across their supply chains.
• Engage International Forums: Utilize regional (African Union, ECOWAS, ECCAS) and international (UN, human rights bodies) forums to highlight the gendered impacts of extractives in West and Central Africa and demand stronger commitments and support.

These pathways, when pursued with genuine political will and sustained commitment, can transform the extractives industry from a site of exploitation and rights violations into a force for inclusive and equitable development, truly benefiting women and communities across West and Central Africa.

The extractives industry in West and Central Africa, particularly artisanal and small-scale mining, stands as a complex paradox: a powerful engine of employment and livelihoods, yet often a relentless perpetuator of hardship, exploitation, and human rights violations, especially for women. From their indispensable, yet consistently overlooked, roles in crushing ore and providing essential support services, women navigate a treacherous landscape fraught with lack of access to resources, precarious work conditions, pervasive gender-based violence, and severe health hazards. Their human rights, particularly their socio-economic entitlements and bodily integrity, are routinely compromised in the pursuit of mineral wealth.

The prevailing narrative of ASM as inherently negative, while containing elements of truth, often overlooks its immense potential for immediate economic empowerment if approached with foresight and a deep commitment to social justice. The Africa Mining Vision offers a crucial blueprint for responsible and inclusive mineral development, but its promise can only be truly realized if women are central to its formalization efforts. A gender-responsive formalization strategy is not a peripheral consideration; it is the core mechanism through which this sector can become a genuine engine of dignified work and equitable development. Such a transformation demands secure land tenure for women, tailored financial access, equitable training, meaningful representation in decision-making, gender-sensitive health and safety protocols, and robust mechanisms to prevent and respond to gender-based violence.

The path forward requires urgent, concerted, and collaborative action. Governments must enact and enforce gender-responsive mining laws, criminalize all forms of GBV, and ensure accessible justice. Civil society must continue to build strong coalitions, empower grassroots leadership, and advocate relentlessly for women’s rights. Mining companies must adopt ethical practices, conduct thorough gender impact assessments, and invest in the well-being of women in their value chains. International partners must move beyond traditional development models to provide sustained, flexible funding that directly resources women-led initiatives and supports gender-transformative change.

Ultimately, reclaiming the riches of West and Central Africa’s extractives industry for all means fundamentally reconfiguring power dynamics. It means recognizing the unseen hands of women, valuing their immense contributions, and safeguarding their rights and dignity. It is a call to transform a sector often defined by exploitation into one that champions human development, ensuring that the wealth extracted from beneath the ground truly translates into empowerment, equity, and sustainable well-being for all women and communities above ground.