By Staff Reporter
Women who attended the just-ended five-day Regional Exchange Conference in Nigeria which was for Comic Relief partners and part of the #PowerUp project being implemented in Zimbabwe by Centre for Natural Resource Governance (CNRG) laid out a raft of demands to guard against oppression and exploitation of host communities with vast wealth.
The #PowerUp project is centred on the #Right2SayNo and amplifying the voices of African women against the destruction of natural extractives.
The primary goal of the exchange conference was to learn and improve feminist methods and approaches. Three female community leaders from Hwange, Sese, and Penhalonga, where Centre for Natural Resource Governance is implementing the #PowerUp Project in Zimbabwe, were in attendance
The women from Zimbabwe and Nigeria demanded the following:
- African women say No to a destructive, harmful, and unjust economic system that creates lives of hardship and poverty for most people across resource-rich African countries.
- Lawmakers both at the federal and state levels should repeal laws and practices that disempower and deprive women from getting access to land, economic resources, and all other development opportunities and benefits.
- Communities hosting mining as well as oil and gas operations deserve better benefits from the resources in their land and from their governments.
- The voices of women in Africa on fossil fuel extraction be strengthened by exchange programmes, capacity building, joint actions, increased funding, networking, and movement building.