By Staff Reporter
Centre for Natural Resource Governance was part of the just-ended five-day Regional Exchange Conference in Nigeria which was for Comic Relief partners and part of the #PowerUp project, which is being implemented by the WoMIN African Alliance, Kebetkache Women Development & Resource Centre in Nigeria. In Zimbabwe, CNRG is the implementing partner.
The main goal of the project is to empower grassroots women to take the lead in opposing massive injustice in extractive sector projects. Three female community leaders from Hwange, Sese, and Penhalonga, where the CNRG is implementing the #PowerUp Project, attended the conference in Nigeria after getting support from the organisation.
Tracy Mutiwekuziva, CNRG Gender and Extractives Officer who attended the Nigeria conference, explained some of the key highlights from the event.
“Lack of access to land and clean drinking water, need for free, prior and informed consent and sham environmental impact assessments processes, lack of involvement of women in natural resource management, and pollution of land and water are some of the issues that were identified during the exchange visit,” she said.
Over the last three years, the project has supported women’s safe spaces, local advocacy actions, capacity building for women in project locations, local campaign research, and capacity building for staff in partner organizations.
The project is assisting grassroots women organizations in seven project locations across Nigeria and Zimbabwe in articulating their challenges and voicing their interests in connection to large-scale extractivist projects, demanding their right to free, prior, informed and continuous consent. The project also gives women a platform to advocate for a clear vision for development choices.
The team had the opportunity to tour the Okwuzi oil fields and observe the daily challenges that people living in the oil-rich area face. The primary issues associated with oil drilling are cervical cancer, early menopause in women as young as 25, pollution, and harm to agricultural land from oil spills. There are many things to be learned from the Nigerian women since they have enlisted the assistance of the local chiefs in their fight against the patriarchal system, they live in.