As the OPM-managed Kenya Extractives Programme (K-EXPRO) comes to an end, we’ve been considering the impact of the high levels of female staff and female leadership within our local partner organisations on programme outcomes. There are indications that there is a connection between the two. The K-EXPRO programme’s broad aim was to prepare the ground for Kenya’s nascent extractives sectors to make a greater contribution to inclusive economic growth and poverty reduction.
While the programme did not set out to achieve gender transformative outcomes, or have the explicit goal of improving gender equality, it has demonstrated that considering unequal structures and norms between men and women in the context of the extractive sector adds another layer of complexity to programming. We are not just engaging with complex economic and extractive sector dynamics, but with social complexity too.
Despite the strong economic rationale for gender equality and Kenya’s constitutional commitment to promote the full involvement of women in …