Federal government has pledged to equip African women with the requisite skills to participate actively in the mining sector value chain.
Gatekeepers News reports that the Minister of Solid Minerals Development and Chairman of the African Minerals Strategy Group (AMSG), Dr. Dele Alake made this pledge while giving his goodwill message at the International Women’s Day Forum 2024 organised by the Women Miners Association.
The Minister lauded the organisers for putting the progress and plight of women in the mining sector on the front burner, emphasising the importance of investing in the development of women for leadership in industry and governance.
Alake’s Spokesman, Segun Tomori quoted him as saying, “We live in a world in which no one, no gender must be left behind. This is the logic of progressive transformation that we desire.
“The African Minerals Strategy Group is committed to empowering women with appropriate skills to enable them participate in the mining sector value chain, from exploration and extraction to processing and commerce. We support access to technical training in mining for our young women: we support start-up financial assistance for women mining entrepreneurs, and we champion the inclusion of women in the leadership of regulatory agencies.”
Alake revealed that the AMSG under his leadership will initiate annual studies on the progress Africa is making in the aforementioned areas and publish findings on subsequent International Women’s Day.
The Minister charged the African continent to be resolute in its resolve to add additional value to the strategy for wealth retention, stressing that African Ministers of Mining are determined to put in place policies which discourage the export of raw materials and encourage industrial processing of minerals into semi-finished goods for exports.
Alake said, “This will reduce the obnoxious legacy of unequal exchange, which African scholars see as the manifestation of neo-colonialism. Let us elevate the quality of commerce with our trading partners by offering more value. The faithful execution of this policy will provide more jobs and deepen capital formation in the mining industry.”
It will be recalled that on the sidelines of the “Invest in African Mining Indaba”, in South Africa, Alake was unanimously elected as the Chairman of the African Minerals Strategy Group (AMSG), a body of African Ministers of Solid Minerals/Mineral Resources championing value addition and maximum beneficiation from the continent’s vast mineral resources for the development of member countries.
