New York to host a High-Level Panel of ECOWAS Member States

New York hosts this Friday, March 10, a High-Level Panel of ECOWAS Member States on the empowerment of women/girls in the geo-extractive sector in West Africa, on the sidelines of CSW67.

Organised jointly on the sidelines of the 67th United Nations Commission on the Status of Women (CSW67) by the ECOWAS Department of Human Development and Social Affairs, the international NGOs OXFAM and WILDAF, the High Level Panel of ECOWAS Member States will take place on Friday, March 10, 2023 at the African Union Permanent Mission to the United Nations in New York, United States. This Panel is part of a regional campaign called “30% of the extractive sector’s development funds to strengthen women’s economic empowerment and girls’ education”.

“Responding to the challenges and challenges of financing socio-economic development programs dedicated to women and girls through the geo-extractive sector in West Africa, as a lever for the economic recovery of the region”, is the theme around which the Ministers and Experts in charge of Women and those of Oil and Mines of the ECOWAS Member States are invited within the framework of this High Level Panel. The objective of this Panel is to seize the advocacy framework offered by the CSW67 event to popularise the priorities of the 30% campaign with the High Authorities of West Africa and encourage formal commitments within the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women.

The expected participants at this meeting are the Ministers in charge of women’s issues and those of Mines of the ECOWAS Member States, officials of territorial administration and local authorities, representatives of diplomatic missions in New York, members of civil society and women affected by mines. The ECOWAS High Level Panel will be held in hybrid format under the chairmanship of the Ministers of Mines and those responsible for the gender of certain targeted countries, including Burkina Faso, Guinea Bissau, Ghana, Liberia, Senegal and Niger.

It is important to remember that West Africa has a significant potential for natural resources in its subsoil. Most countries in the Region declare in their constitution that “wealth and natural resources belong to the people. They are used to improve his living conditions”. The same legislation prohibits any discrimination based on sex but remains silent regarding the consideration of specific issues.

Unfortunately, in the mining sector, there are very few legal provisions in favour of gender equality. The implementing texts on Local Development Funds from the extractive sector also did not provide for special provisions on gender consideration.

It is for this reason that ECOWAS and its partners have initiated this campaign in order to use all strategies including advocacy at the level of Member States, regional and international institutions and decision-makers to ensure a good consideration of gender in investments for the benefit of populations. The campaign aims to strengthen the understanding of the mechanisms for distributing funds from the extractive sector, get States to apply a gender-sensitive budgeting policy and invest 30% of the development funds from the extractive sector in the economic development of women and in the education of girls.