Our Land Thoughts – Global Land Initiative Roundtable on Gender Issues in Post-Mining Land Restoration

• 5 billion ha globally are reported to be degraded – UN Global Land Outlook 2022
• Global voluntary commitments to restore degraded land by 2030 have reached 1 billion ha – but these will take time.
• Every dollar invested in restoring degraded lands brings between $7-30 in economic returns
• $200billion financing flowed to Nature-based services (not exclusively land restoration) in 2023 – this is just 30% of what is necessary

Globally, women currently own and control less than 20% of the world’s land. In lower income (‘developing’) countries, this figure is as low as 10%. Low documentation levels are an exacerbating factor – 75% of the world’s population cannot prove they own the land on which they live and work, and it’s estimated that 90% of Africa’s land mass remains undocumented.  What this means is increased vulnerability for women – women who farm the land, live on the land, invest on the land, but who – without their rights recognised – ultimately have no control over the land.

Growing women’s ownership of land cannot happen overnight. So we need to capitalise on opportunities as they arise – like restoration. Globally, billions of dollars are flowing in nature-based solutions and land restoration – and billions more are needed to achieve global targets. We need to position women now and recognise their role in restoration – and entrench systems that guarantee women’s rights to restored land.

To start the conversation, the Global Land Initiative Roundtable on Gender Issues in Post-Mining Land Restoration was born out of a partnership between G20 GLI*, the international Federation of Surveyors Commissions 7 and 8, Ghanaian Land and Property Rights NGO COLANDEF and the University of Mines and Technology, Tarkwa. With these organisations on board, 35 delegates and experts from 10 countries were invited to Takoradi, Ghana in May of this year to examine the intersection of gender and post-mining landscapes. A key focus of the roundtable was the role of women in post-mining land restoration, and how to foster a more inclusive approach, promoting gender equality and recognising and enabling women’s agency and innovation.

We heard from a range of perspectives, including from women already working in the mining space, from researchers in mining and land restoration sectors, experts in land and planning and representatives from the Queen Mothers’ Platform.

Ghana presented a powerful context for the exploration of women’s roles in both mining and post-mining landscapes. Ghana is one of the leading African producers of gold, but some 30-40% of gold mined is extracted through artisanal or small-scale mining. Of this, ‘galamsey’ forms a significant proportion, being the typically unregulated, informal and illegal small-scale mining.

Despite a reasonably robust legal framework to govern mining and environmental impacts, galamsey is falling through the cracks – with miners (‘galamseyers’) failing to register operations, operating without permits and adopting illegal and harmful mining techniques that poison land and rivers. The gendered impacts of mining are widely reported – published in journals or media online – but typically identify women as ‘sideline victims’ rather than as active agents of change. These impacts were evident in a fieldtrip taken by participants to the Adiewiso mining site in Ghana’s Western Region and then onto the junction of the Ankobra River with the Gulf of Guinea – a once popular tourist site, now heavily polluted.

Improved regulation of mining, and improved attention to post-mining land restoration would significantly benefit women. But what are the practical steps to achieve this?

Image above: Summary of process, actions and entry-points for women into the process of post-artisanal mining restoration

The meeting began to explore some of these answers – including the roles that women are already playing in mining and restoration, and what is needed to grow these moving forward. The standard solutions apply: improved education, gender mainstreaming, better application of EPIC and ESIA processes, better regulation etc. But Ghana has one clear gamechanger: the presence of existing and increasingly powerful women’s networks. Two in particular stand out:

• The Women in Mining Association Ghana is well established, and part of a broader network of 37 Women in Mining Associations across Africa. Combined with the efforts of the University of Mines and Technology (UMaT) Tarkwa, this presents a solid institutional base from which to drive efforts, provide evidence-based ideas for action and seek and manage diverse funding sources.
• The Queen Mother’s Platform – https://qmpgh.org/ , supported and established by COLANDEF. This platform recognises the fundamental role of traditional (male) leaders in managing Ghana’s land asset – and seeks to grow women’s land rights through the intrinsic and influential power of the Queen Mothers. Supporting organisation COLANDEF, is of course a well-known Ghanaian women’s land rights non-profit organisation has supported the establishment of. COLANDEF itself has extensive experience providing training to women, and managing project funding and scope, and is an active member of the Stand for her Land Network.

As a key result of the Roundtable, representatives from these networks committed to drafting a pilot project that would demonstrate small-scale land restoration post- (artisanal) mining, with the key objectives to

• Understand and address in-practice barriers to women’s participation in land restoration
• Understand what the ‘cost viability gap’ to financing land restoration is, and opportunities to finance that gap – including understanding any role for micro-financing of women-led land restoration, and direct local community benefits of land restoration.
• Establish a network of land restoration actors within the post-artisanal mining space in Ghana.

LEI was proud to be represented by Kate Fairlie at this event, and we look forward to seeing what can be catalysed as a result. You can see a small excerpt of the Roundtable here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6-5rgMbiik and the highlights blog from the Global Land Initiative here: https://g20land.org/blog/highlights-from-the-roundtable-on-gender-issues-in-post-mining-land-restoration/

*The United Nations Convention on Combating Desertification (UNCCD) is promoting land restoration through its Global Initiative for reducing land degradation and enhancing conservation of terrestrial habitats. The initiative which was launched by G20 Leaders in 2020 has the objective of preventing, halting, and reversing land degradation, with an ambition to reduce degraded lands by 50 percent, by the year 2040. The UNCCD G20 Global Land Initiative (GLI) promotes initiatives, policies and practices that can halt land degradation and promote land conservation and restoration. This can amongst other outcomes, lead to an increase in land availability for gender distribution more equitably. In addition, by promoting the growth of land restoration as an industry, the socio-economic benefits to women and youth in terms of enhanced livelihoods can address poverty (SDG 1), end hunger (SDG.2), narrow the gaps in land access (SDG 5), promote sustainable cities and communities (SDG 11) and ultimately improve life on land (SDG 15).

Main Image: The heavily-polluted Ankora river