Women In The Exractives Sector Year one of this project focuses on the lack of oversight and accountability across extractives sector in Nigeria, giving rise to governmental and social inequality, that increasingly marginalizes women in extractive sector and beyond. This is a fallout from operational blindness by extractive companies that often operates in a fragile and conflict-affected settings (FCAS), environments that are characterized by weak institutions and limited accountability. In Nigeria’s context, non-transparent transactions can easily be manipulated.  Opaque transactions that international players have exploited, on instances, such as, reservation of (lucrative) OMLs and RFRs that favors some IOCs and discriminates against host communities and local content frameworks. https://ncdmb.gov.ng/nc-act.pdf.

This project seeks to raise awareness on the risks associated with lack of transparency and effective oversight in the oil trade business, particularly, focusing on how these risks play out, when oil traders do business with host states (like Nigeria) affected by conflict and fragility. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2214790X14000173.  It has focused on ensuring female participation in extractives resources governance, making sure women participate in local governing structures such as Community Development Committees, where decisions on resource allocation and management are made with other gate keepers in the oil and gashost communities. Year 2 will be based on scaling up achievements of year 1, such as, the setting up of Bayelsa State Women Economic Inclusion Committee that was achieved in year 1. https://sunnewsonline.com/pia-bayelsa-govt-sets-up-14-member-women-inclusion-committee/ that shall be consolidated, ground truthing relating to establishment of Host Communities Trust Funds (HCTFs) by some (IOCs) settlors and collaborating with Nigeria’s National Assembly Committees related to extractive justice in compelling  IOCs to steer towards extractive justice https://guardian.ng/news/exxonmobil-nnpc-inaugurate-host-community-trusts-in-aibom/.

Year 2 of this project will look into ways in that companies operating in Nigeria’s extractive sector calculates Host Communities 3% CAPeX encapsulated in the PIA. https://www.vanguardngr.com/2023/10/pia-3-opex-confusion-as-oil-firms-seize-host-communities/   and in other FCAS, exploring to what extent, implications for operating within this contexts is impacting on host communities, particularly, women. Part of the intervention will be to identify the specific contextual elements, within Nigeria (e.g. weak institutions, informal politics, lack of accountability, lack of regulation and control, political practices favoring oil traders against women in communities) that enable oil trading practices that are often highly profitable to the oil traders, but detrimental to the inhabitants of oil-rich host-countries, especially, women. Implementation of Nigeria’s PIA from enactment to date shall also be measured in year 2, especially, impacts of the PIA, asit has to do with women empowerment in extractive value chains through Host Communities Trust Fund.

In this sense, interventions shall seek to close the institutionalised opacity that has characterised the operations of the generally complex extractivesector in Nigeria, which has affected women (negatively) for many decades. The net effect of this is for a sector that accounts for bulk of government revenues that were effectively walled off from the generality of Nigerians in the past. While the complexity remains, the opacity is gradually giving way. Reports of the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) havehelped in opening this strategic sector to civic groups, the media, parliamentarians, and citizens. https://neiti.gov.ng/extractive-value-chain. Ongoing reforms in the sector are also helping in breaking down the sturdy wall of secrecy. Much still needs to be done for women economic inclusion and extractive accountability. Through this project’s year 2, actors will be ableto make informed contributions on optimal and prudent management of extractive resources. Without doubt, knowledge-driven engagements by all of society,especially, civil society groups, will be a critical success factor in the quest for the reversal of the resource curse in Nigeria https://www.nigerdeltabudget.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/OXFAM-Nigerias-Inequality-Report.pdf and overhaul the plights of women and bring them into the governance structures, especially, at community level. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1gycze2t2iu9V1JvJwD-k1a-oMX4lyXEx/view?usp=sharing.