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With informalisation remaining high and funding access limited, partnerships between the government, financial institutions, and the private sector have been identified as key to the formalisation of women in ASM as well as expanding their access to finance, Mining Zimbabwe reports.
By Ryan Chigoche
This was one of the key takeaways at the ongoing Intergovernmental Forum on Mining, Minerals, Metals and Sustainable Development (IGF) Gender Equality and Artisanal and Small-Scale Mining Capacity Building and Strategy Workshop, where several SADC women in mining associations gathered to chart a way forward towards a formalised, gender-inclusive ASM sector.
Over the years, women in ASM and other marginalised groups have struggled to access funding from financial institutions. This is largely because banks often lack knowledge of how ASM permitting and revenue cycles work, resulting in loans that are not tailored for the industry. At the same time, women miners may not fully understand the benefits of formalisation, limiting their ability to qualify for financing and expand operations.
Faced with this challenge, IGF Senior Policy Advisor Ege Tekinbas, in an interview with Mining Zimbabwe, urged governments, financial institutions, and large-scale mining (LSM) companies to work together to improve access to finance for women in ASM in Zimbabwe and across the SADC region.
“We believe that there could be some collaboration, some programs that could help realising these policies, implementing these policies through also infrastructure and support from LSM. If the dialogue can be enhanced between those three different types of stakeholders, they can better understand, women miners can understand the financial instruments better, they can understand better how women are struggling to access those instruments, and the government stakeholders can also understand how to better work across those three different groups of people,” Tekinbas said.
Strengthening partnerships between governments, financial institutions, and LSM companies is seen as a key solution, not only to expand financing options but also to provide infrastructure, mentorship, and technical support that enable women miners to formalise operations and improve productivity.
Beyond financing, the IGF, which supports 68 member countries, including Zimbabwe, also highlighted other challenges, including limited technical training, gaps in data collection, and insufficient government support for capacity-building programs.
Adding to that, other key issues identified were restrictive cultural norms and beliefs that limit women’s participation, and complex formalisation requirements that make it difficult to operate legally.
Gender-based violence in ASM was also flagged as a critical concern, highlighting the need for coordinated action across stakeholders.
The IGF Zimbabwe workshop is expected to feed into a regional policy framework, or “white paper,” aimed at promoting more equitable participation of women in ASM.
In Zimbabwe, women make up roughly 10–15% of the ASM workforce, with higher participation in some SADC countries.
