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Blog Posts in Livelihoods
Less than two months away from South Sudan’s independence, women in the soon-to-be state have united together to ensure their rights and gendered concerns are incorporated into the new constitution. Over the weekend the South Sudan Women’s Coalition—made up of a number of women’s professional and civil society groups—held a two-day workshop in Juba to discuss the draft transitional constitution and the constitutional review process.
Some have criticized the Enough Project’s advocacy on conflict minerals in the Congo as unintentionally destroying the livelihoods of artisanal miners. Critics say our efforts to promote regulation of the trade in minerals and to cut out abusive armed groups will result in a de facto embargo of Congo minerals and eliminate jobs in the mining sector.
This conclusion, though, is based on a false premise; there actually aren’t any “jobs” to be eliminated in eastern Congo’s artisanal mines. Those working in the mines are essentially slaves with no real “livelihood” to lose.
In Enough’s recent reporting from Walikale, a remote, minerals rich area of eastern Congo, we’ve noted in no uncertain terms that the humanitarian, security, and economic situation there is precarious. A decade after large mineral deposits were found in the region, livelihoods have become inextricably intertwined with mining, but the benefits of Walikale’s minerals fail to trickle down to the local population. One of the most promising initiatives for formalizing the mining industry is the establishment of centres de negoce, or trading centers.
The paradox of Congo – ruin caused by years of war and poor governance amid enormous potential wealth – is a common theme when describing the challenges the country faces. But perhaps nowhere is the contradiction of utter lack of development amid abundant natural resources more pronounced than in Walikale, an isolated region in conflict-plagued eastern Congo.
“We don’t understand why President Obama would want to cut off Congo’s minerals,” said Idrissa Assani, expressing a sentiment clearly shared by his fellow miners who sat together in the dark office of their mining cooperative. “It is the innocents who are vulnerable” and who will suffer most from “Obama’s law,” he said.
