Gender Justice in Mining and Licit/Illicit Financial Flows in Africa Statement Africa Mining Vision and ECOWAS Minerals Development Policy

Gender Justice in Mining and Licit/Illicit Financial Flows in Africa 

Statement 

Africa Mining Vision and ECOWAS Minerals Development Policy  
3-7 November, Accra, Ghana  

We are feminist activists and allies gathered at the ‘Policy Dialogue on the African Mining Vision and ECOWAS Mining Development Plan’ and ‘Policy Strategy Workshop on Illicit Financial Flows and Africa’ held on November, 6-7 and 10-12, 2014 by Third World Network-Africa. Based on recent economic and political trends in Africa, as well as specific discussions at these two workshops with experts including policy makers, civil society organisations and trade unions, we offer the following analyses and targeted proposals.

Africa has been marked by higher mineral commodity prices largely fed by demand from China, the workshop of the world, which shows signs of slowing growth. To date Africa’s development is underpinned by attracting foreign direct investment (FDI), especially in the mining sector. The focus of African economies, on the export of raw materials and the import of processed goods, directly undermines the wellbeing and livelihoods of most Africans, especially women. Economic liberalisation has made our economies vulnerable to external shocks, as shown during the recent global economic crisis. We call for the structural transformation of African economies, especially production relations, with emphasis on women’s work. Addressing Illicit Financial Flows (IFFs) must be part of this.  

Efforts to stem IFFs predominantly focus on halting capital flight and repatriating capital to African states. In the context of widespread social and gender inequity, deepening poverty, multiple crises and weak social infrastructure, a broadened and refocused discourse on IFFs is necessary. In addition to capital flight, African development is further undermined because surplus derived from extractive industries in particular has not been sufficiently reinvested in the domestic economy. Exorbitant profits are harvested across the African continent at the expense of worker wages, not least the wages of women. Additionally, Bilateral Investment Treaties (BITs) usually include articles on transfers and appropriation that allow investment companies to protect and repatriate their profits, further constraining African states’ abilities to regulate transnational corporations and to stem capital flight. 

Strategies for structural transformation should develop and implement the following:

• Investigations of commercial transactions that shape production relations and wider economic, political and social structures that perpetuate the outflow of resources and entrench social inequity, environmental degradation, and insecure and unsafe work conditions that disproportionately affect mining communities, especially women.
• Support states to provide laws and policies to redistribute surplus, reinvest in the productive sector, and protect human and women’s rights. African states should lead the crafting of alternative development strategies, focused on domestic production rather than export, in addition to strengthening technology and indigenous knowledge, ensure decent work, improve livelihoods and promote social wellbeing.
• Strengthen state legislation and institutions to challenge multinational corporations that use trade mispricing, mis-invoicing, tax havens, and other tactics that lead to capital flight.
• Review BITs and investment policies to protect the natural environment and peoples’ rights especially the rights of women who are the most vulnerable.

Generally, the working conditions of mine workers are insecure, unhealthy and unsafe, while artisanal and small-scale miners (ASM), 40-50% of whom are women, work in worse conditions. Persistent social and gender inequality breeds sexual and gender-based violence in societies at large, as well as in homes and workplaces.

We therefore make the following recommendations:

• Implement explicit policies with clear targets to ensure job creation, a living wage, decent work, women’s employment in mining and protection of the right to unionise.
• Recognise and measure care work in mining communities, and so improve government and corporate social service provision, public utilities and compensation.
• Develop and strengthen laws and policies by accountable, women-led structures to investigate and effectively prosecute gender violence cases, as well as to offer additional forms of support such as psychosocial care.
• As part of a broad and strong commitment to sexual and reproductive health and rights, states must guarantee women’s rights to contraception, post-exposure prophylaxis and abortion. Child maintenance and care, health care, scholarships and psychosocial support must be institutionalised in workplaces and society at large.

Mining operations, whether small-scale, artisanal or large-scale, pollute the natural environment, with both short- and long-term negative impacts. Mining companies use and produce large quantities of toxic and dangerous substances that pollute the ground, air and water sources, causing diseases and exacerbating poverty. Voluntary initiatives to ensure transparency, such as the Extractives Transparency Initiative (EITI) and the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) have not effectively addressed these challenges.  

Therefore we recommend that:

• Human rights and environmental impact assessments must be a precondition to the commencement of any mining activity with transparency and free public access to information.
• Companies must have closure bonds and closure plans as part of their contracts, to ensure adequate funds for cleaning and remediation of mining sites, safe disposal of wastes, and the establishment of perpetual monitoring and remediation processes that include accountability and grievance mechanisms, with women involved and provided throughout.
• Communities and women must be consulted in assessing mining permits, in transparent and accountable consultative processes

Multinationals, especially mining companies are closely linked to illicit financial flows from Africa, which have impeded the financing of local production and social infrastructure. As a result, revenue from taxes, domestic investments and wages for ordinary employees suffer when billions of dollars are moved to tax havens. States compensate through regressive Value Added Tax (VAT), which disproportionately disadvantages the most vulnerable, especially poor women. Drastic cuts on health and education are also imposed, where most women in the formal sector are employed, thereby increasing the disproportionate burden of care work.  

We therefore make the following recommendations:

• Set targets of the share of revenues for mining communities, especially women, with clear mechanisms and guidelines on receipts and accountability systems
• Compensation must be ensured for mining communities, especially for women’s kitchen gardens, subsistence food agriculture and increased burden of care work
• Miners, and especially women, in ASM urgently need support for land acquisition, training on environmentally safer techniques and health and safety measures, in addition to access to finance at reasonable rates
• Implement progressive tax systems that shifts the burden of taxes from the consumption of people living in poverty to those with higher incomes, especially corporations

The AMV and ECOWAS Minerals Development Policy (EMDP) are key components of the structural transformation agenda and combating illicit financial flows. We also recognise challenges of implementation, including the omission of gender equity. 

Therefore, we recommend:

• African governments must finance the implementation of the AMV and EMDP.
• Constituencies such as women’s organisations, trade unions, faith-based groups and other marginalised constituencies must be mobilised to meaningfully participate in these processes

The following organisations endorse the statement:

Action Aid International

Agenda for Change (A4C), Kenya

Alternative Information and Development Centre (AIDC), South Africa 

Association Citoyenne de Défense des Intérêts Collectifs - Cameroun

Centre for Democracy and Development -West Africa

Centre for Trade Policy and Development, Zambia

Development Alternatives with Women in a New Era (DAWN)

Engender, South Africa

Environmental Rights Action, Nigeria

Inter Pares, Canada

Network for Women’s Rights in Ghana (NETRIGHT), Ghana

Network from Movements for Justice and Development, Sierra Leone

Regions Refocus 2015

Social Change Research Unit, University of Johannesburg

Southern and Eastern African Trade Information and Negotiations Institute (SEATINI), Uganda

Tax Justice Network-Africa, Kenya

Zambia Tax Platform, Zambia