Ensuring Women Follow the Money: Gender Barriers in Extractive Industry Revenue Accountability in the Dominican Republic and Zambia

Citation:

Jayasinghe, Namalie, and Maria Ezpeleta. 2019. "Ensuring Women Follow the Money: Gender Barriers in Extractive Industry Revenue Accountability in the Dominican Republic and Zambia." The Extractive Industries and Society, April 15, 2019. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.exis.2019.04.003

Authors: Namalie Jasyasinghe, Maria Ezpeleta

Abstract:

Social accountability initiatives (SAIs) can be important to help push for oil, gas, and mining revenues to go to communities impacted by extractive industries (EI). Local investments in targeted services and programs can improve development outcomes and address negative impacts caused by EI. Ensuring that women and women’s rights organizations (WROs) are part of SAIs is likewise crucial, without which investments financed by EI revenues may not reflect the needs and interests of women, missing an opportunity to advance women’s rights and gender equality. This article shares preliminary results from a project that involves: (1) research exploring a women’s rights approach to SAIs on EI revenue transparency; and (2) program activities intended to foster joint agenda-setting between WROs and EI revenue transparency civil society organizations (EITCSOs) that distinctly focus on advancing women’s rights. Initial findings suggest that addressing structural barriers to women’s participation, such as socio-cultural norms, women’s lack of ownership of land and resources, gender-insensitive consultation processes, inaccessibility of information, and women’s lack of awareness of their rights, in SAIs related to EI revenue transparency could improve women’s agency. Through this project, WROs and EITCSOs are building advocacy agendas that respond to these barriers to promote women’s rights.

Keywords: gender, women's rights organizations, social accountability, revenue, extractive industries, Dominican Republic, Zambia, transparency

Topics: Extractive Industries, Gender, Women, Gendered Discourses, International Organizations, Rights, Women's Rights Regions: Africa, East Africa, Americas, Caribbean countries Countries: Dominican Republic, Zambia

Year: 2019

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