Commodity Modeling and Pricing: Methods for Analyzing Resource Market Behavior

CHAPTER 16

African Women in Mining Partnerships

Brigitte Bocoum

INTRODUCTION

In a variety of ways, high costs have been found to be associated with the low participation of women in the economic sphere. Yet the traditional paradigm still limits the recognition that women need greater flexibility to play multiple roles as mothers, wives, workers, and citizens, to maximize family welfare. Meanwhile, few families in Africa and most other parts of the world are affluent enough to live comfortably on one income, whereas it has become common knowledge that gender inequality holds back a country’s economic performance. Barriers, in whatever form, that reduce open competition impede a country’s ability to draw on its best talents, and ultimately undermine economic growth and productivity. The need has now thus become urgent to look to alternative models of growth and development.

It is worth recalling the importance of the mineral sector for at least 23 of Africa’s 53 nations (Bocoum-Kaberuka 1999a). Also, the fact that mining has not yet generated the kind of socioeconomic development one would expect is an important consideration. So are the availability of sizable deposits of great variety, the several revisions of development policies and large investments granted over time, but most important here is the fact that mineral exploitation is not new on the continent. It is thus believed that the situation calls for rethinking the development strategy for the sector. It is further suggested ...