The argument in brief
Artisanal and small-scale mining sustains tens of millions of livelihoods across Sub-Saharan Africa, and women make up a large share of its workforce. Yet most efforts to “mainstream gender” in the sector have delivered gains that look real on paper — association seats, formalised licences, donor projects — while leaving the majority of grassroots female miners facing the same structural barriers, and in some cases new ones.
Drawing on evidence from Tanzania, Ghana and the DRC, the brief identifies a consistent pattern: empowerment that reaches the visible and well-connected, measured by outputs rather than agency, while the women who crush, wash, pan and process continue to carry the sector on undervalued labour.
The five blindspots
- Elite capture within women’s associations. Leadership dominated by educated, urban or well-connected women, sidelining those without networks or literacy.
- Gender-neutral formalisation that reinforces exclusion. Costly, demanding licensing that favours those with capital or patronage.
- Data and visibility gaps that mask failure Generic “women miners” framing that keeps the poorest invisible.
- Neglect of intersectionality. Class, literacy, location and custom left unaddressed; male control of pits and markets intact.
- Rhetorical mainstreaming without accountability. Gender in the policy documents, but no monitoring, enforcement or grassroots consultation.
What the brief argues needs to change
The fix is not more programming, but a different kind: grassroots representation in the structures that claim to speak for women, formalisation designed for those without capital, data that measures real agency rather than attendance, and accountability tied to field-level change. The full brief sets out six concrete recommendations, the evidence base, and comparative cases from Tanzania, Ghana and the DRC.