Rapid technological advances, increasing calls for sustainability, and the low-carbon energy transition are transforming large-scale mining across the globe. But the lack of high-quality, gender-disaggregated employment data leaves decision-makers ill-equipped to effectively support a more equal and inclusive mining workforce.

To help remedy the situation, the Women and the Mine of the Future Global Report looks at a sample of 12 countries to uncover the gender-disaggregated employment profile for large-scale mining, focusing on women and their occupations in the sector.

The report begins with a cross-country analysis that compares the data against commonly held assumptions and key trends in the sector. Next, the researchers consider what the unfolding transformations will mean for mining occupations. The report goes on to identify the main data gaps and challenges hindering evidence-based policy-making and opportunities for women to fully participate in the future of mining. The report concludes with policy recommendations for governments, companies, and workers to consider.

This global report is the final outcome of the first phase of the Women and the Mine of the Future project. It is a collaborative project led by the Intergovernmental Forum on Mining, Minerals, Metals and Sustainable Development (IGF) which has been hosted by IISD since 2015. Project partners are comprised of International Women in Mining, International Labour Organization, German Agency for International Cooperation, and the Environmental Governance Programme run by the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency and United Nations Development Programme.

Women and the Mine of the Future: Country reports 

• Argentina: English and Español (GIZ);
• Australia
• Brazil
• Canada
• Chile: English and Español
• Ghana
• Mongolia
• Peru: English and Español
• South Africa
• Sweden
• Zambia

To come: Colombia.

Specifically, this report explores the progress made by MDBs to

• Scale up finance for adaptation at the country level across the full breadth of their investment portfolio, including designated climate finance and development finance streams.
• Incorporate climate risk screening and assessment in project design and implementation.
• Align their portfolios with adaptation priorities identified by national governments in their National Adaptation Plans (NAPs) and nationally determined contributions (NDCs).

Drawing upon case studies prepared by three research organizations—the African Centre for Technology Studies based in Kenya, the Prakriti Resources Centre based in Nepal, and Libélula based in Peru—the paper’s key findings are:

• The four MDBs examined have increased their flows of finance for adaptation over the past decade at the global level. At the country level, the reviews of finance for adaptation provided by these MDBs in Kenya, Nepal, and Peru indicate that while they are generally increasing, it is difficult to discern clear trends.
• Screening for and assessing climate change vulnerability and risk have become standard practices with most MDBs, with an observed increase in the number of projects now being assessed for climate risk in the design and implementation stages. It is likely that this allocation of upfront funding to assess climate risks, particularly for large infrastructure investments, has led to an increase in the proportion of project budgets tagged by the MDBs as having adaptation co-benefits.
• MDBs are beginning to draw on information in national documents—such as NAPs and NDCs—to guide their programming and project identification at the country level.

Despite this progress, the paper highlights ongoing challenges in scaling up MDB finance for adaptation. Among these challenges is a lack of transparency in how allocations of finance for adaptation are determined at the project level. Finance ministries also need a greater understanding of the economic case for and benefits of adaptation, as well as the need to mainstream adaptation in national economic development strategies and budgets. Consequently, scaling up finance for adaptation in developing countries like Kenya, Nepal, and Peru will require continued MDB support for technical analysis and country-led climate adaptation planning processes.

The paper concludes that MDBs could also place greater emphasis on funding discrete adaptation projects, in addition to financing the additional costs of ensuring that climate risks are reduced in the design and implementation of development projects. It also calls for consideration to be given to programmatic finance for adaptation and utilization of a wider range of financial instruments to support long-term adaptation programs. These efforts should be anchored in an ongoing commitment to using countries’ NAPs and NDCs to identify the best and most strategic use of MDB climate and development finance.

The COVID-19 pandemic has had devastating impacts on the livelihoods of many people around the world. Its impacts on informal sectors and in jurisdictions where state reach and support are limited have been all the more damaging. The artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) sector—which employs nearly 45 million people around the world and indirectly supports approximately 150 million—has been among those hit hardest by the pandemic.

Health impacts on miners and their families have included sickness and, in some cases, death, with many mining communities located in rural areas far from health care or the social safety net of the state. The closure of international borders and imposition of national movement restrictions in many countries disrupted mineral supply chains, creating significant obstacles to trade and a buyer’s market that saw the collapse of mineral prices at the ASM site level.

Against this backdrop, this policy brief focuses on the gendered impacts of COVID-19 on ASM communities. The resounding finding of ASM sector research is that COVID-19 and its related impacts have exacerbated pre-pandemic gender inequalities in the sector, despite women being critical members of the ASM workforce worldwide.

Governments in Latin America are transitioning away from relying on mining corporations to follow international best practices and toward developing national legislation surrounding mine closure.

Across the region, there are many countries where legislative expectations around mine closure are established through environmental and social impact assessments (ESIAs) for new mining projects. But this ESIA process has historically failed to protect the state against inheriting the financial liabilities for closing a mine site in the case of a bankruptcy or other events where the company is unwilling or unable to pay for the cost of closure.

In Latin America, to date only Chile and Peru have established comprehensive, national mine closure legislation that requires mining operations to provide financial assurance for closure liabilities. This report examines Chile and Peru’s policies.

A communications strategy to support Peru’s NAP process was developed in 2016 with the overall objective of promoting opportunities for dialogue in order to drive action.

Building on an overview brief on strategic communications for NAP processes, this sNAPshot country brief explores how Peru is using communications to advance their NAP process and climate action more broadly.

Read more in this series

• Strategic Communications for National Adaptation Plan (NAP) Processes
• Strategic Communications for the National Adaptation Plan (NAP) Process in Saint Lucia

A short profile of efforts to reduce social conflicts around the Los Amigos Conservation Concession in the Peruvian Amazon by incorporating the conflict-sensitive conservation approach into conservation planning and strategies.

Agriculture employs about a third of the population in the Peruvian regions of Junín and Piura, with the former known as the food basket of the capital, Lima.

Yet agricultural productivity is impeded by low technology and investments, as well as fragmented land tenure. Climate events, especially those related to the El Niño Southern Oscillation, already have massive impacts on the agricultural sector. While climate change is unlikely to exceed current variability in the next two decades, the gradual increase in temperature and rapidly retreating glaciers will eventually have severe consequences. Climate risk management strategies in agriculture must address current climate variability while preparing the sector for the eventual impacts of warming and glacier retreat. These include more efficient water management and irrigation; improved access to markets and finance; livelihood diversification; revival of ancestral agricultural practices, for example in frost protection; climate-proofing local infrastructure; and better management of climate and risk data. To enable these measures, key climate risk management policies and agencies must be better coordinated.

In this CRiSTAL Stories brief, Marius Keller and Tatiana Farfán de la Vega document how the application of the Community-Based Risk Screening Tool - Adaptation and Livelihoods (CRiSTAL) framework in the municipality of Santa Teresa, in the Cusco region of Peru.

This led to identification by the local communities of a range of climate and gender-sensitive adaptation measures, in line with their local culture and traditions. Continuous engagement of local government in the CRiSTAL process further contributed to the inclusion of climate adaptation into local development plans, which is now being replicated in the surrounding municipalities.