Africa’s Women Miners Told To Compete Less, Collaborate More

3 weeks ago 11

The enforcement manager of Women successful Mining Africa (WiM-Africa), Dr. Comfort Asokoro-Ogaji, has urged women-led mining organisations crossed the continent to determination beyond rivalry and clasp strategical collaboration arsenic the cardinal to shared progress.

She made the telephone successful an code to women miners and entrepreneurs participating successful a hybrid engagement successful Sierra Leone which brought unneurotic women successful the mining assemblage from crossed Africa.

She said, “Collaboration is the existent alternate to competition. When women vie destructively, it divides our spot and slows our progress. But erstwhile we collaborate, we physique powerfulness that moves the sector—and the continent—forward.”

According to her, the aboriginal of Africa’s mining manufacture hinges connected the quality of women to enactment 1 another—through partnerships, associated ventures, and cooperative models that promote shared prosperity and resilience.

“In the artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) sector, collaboration means forming cooperatives that really work—women pooling resources, skills, and tools to standard up accumulation and safety,” Dr. Asokoro-Ogaji said.

“Among companies, it means merging capacities to go stronger together. And successful advocacy, it means designing and launching associated programmes that fortify 1 another’s institutions alternatively of competing for recognition,” she added.

Responding to questions connected however WiM-Africa’s programmes could beryllium replicated astatine the nationalist and assemblage levels, she encouraged section Women successful Mining (WiM) chapters to clasp the organisation’s frameworks and enactment improvement initiatives—especially its flagship NextGen programmes aimed astatine nurturing aboriginal pistillate leaders successful the sector.

“Copy each that determination is to transcript from WiM-Africa,” she urged. “The adjacent decennary indispensable nutrient a caller procreation of vibrant, intelligent, and professionally grounded pistillate leaders driving policy, innovation, ESG, and endeavor wrong Africa’s mining industry.”

The enforcement manager further advocated stronger linkages betwixt women-led enterprises and broader mineral worth concatenation stakeholders, including sourcing companies, beneficiation industries, and policy-making institutions. She noted that these collaborations are indispensable to achieving the goals of the African Union’s Agenda 2063: The Africa We Want.

“Women indispensable play a cardinal relation successful driving liable mineral worth chains and economical transformation,” she said.

Dr. Asokoro-Ogaji concluded by reaffirming WiM-Africa’s semipermanent committedness to gathering an inclusive and sustainable mining sector. She highlighted the organisation’s Five-Year Action Plan (2025–2030), which aims to empower women miners, fortify cooperative structures, and beforehand worth summation crossed the continent.

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