Data on women in mining industry still a major challenge, says WIM president
Georgette Barnes Sakyi Addo was speaking at the 3rd Sub Regional Quarterly Meeting for Women in Mining in West Africa in Accra on Thursday (10 November)
Non-availability of data on women in the mining industry in Africa continues to be a major setback for stakeholders in the industry.
This became more evident, when a representative from Guinea failed to give a presentation of the sector in Guinea at the 3rd Sub Regional Quarterly Meeting for Women in Mining in West Africa in Accra on Thursday (10 November).
Speaking to Asaase News after the meeting, president of Women in Mining Ghana, Georgette Barnes Sakyi Addo said the forum is geared towards addressing the issue.
Lack of data
“Today we had this section for Women in Mining in West Africa and continuously we have seen that the issues are very similar, and we see that availability of data is a major challenge, you could tell from all of the countries that they don’t have any data, but a lot of them is anecdotal, people know that this is a problem.
“But how many women are actually in the mining sector, how many are large-scale, small-scale mining, how many women are living in communities affected by mining. And so, this exercise is basically for us to establish a kind baseline of where we are, what we are doing, where we want to go and how do we get there.”
“And I think in this series there have been about 14 countries and today was the turn of Guinea, Togo Ivory Coast Benin and Guinea Bissau inability to present was basically due to the fact that they have no data, and they even have difficulty in organizing themselves,” she said.
Illegal mining
Touching on the illegal mining in Ghana also known as galamsey, Georgette Barnes Sakyi-Addo advocated for responsible mining as means to tackle the menace.
She believes placing emphasis on training modern practise of mining, research and advocacy could help reduce the menace.
The WIM boss is optimistic women in mining could contribute significantly to reducing the menace with the right support.
Fred Dzakpata
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